Visa applicants from six Muslim-majority countries must have a close U.S. family relationship or formal ties to a U.S. entity to be admitted to the United States under guidance distributed by the U.S. State Department.
The directive defined close family as a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling, including step-siblings and other step-family relations, according to a cable distributed to all U.S. diplomatic posts on Wednesday and seen by Reuters.
Close family “does not include grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancés, and any other ‘extended’ family members,” according to the cable, first reported by the Associated Press.
Immigration experts noted that fiancés, grandparents and grandchildren did not qualify as a close family relationship.
‘Formal, documented’
It also specified that the relationship with a U.S. entity “must be formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course, rather than for the purpose of evading the E.O.”, referring to the executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on March 6 that barred most U.S. travel by citizens of the six nations for 90 days.
The six nations included in the executive order are Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
The travel ban was set to go into effect at 8 p.m. EDT (midnight GMT) on Thursday, the cable said.
