Monday March 6, 2017
President Trump signed a new travel ban Monday that administration
officials said they hope will end legal challenges over the matter by
imposing a 90-day ban on the issuance of new visas for citizens of six
majority-Muslim nations, authorities said.
In addition, the
nation’s refugee program will be suspended for 120 days, and it will
not accept more than 50,000 refugees in a year, down from the 110,000
cap set by the Obama administration.
Trump signed the new ban out
of public view, according to White House officials. The order will not
take effect until March 16, officials said.
The new guidelines name six of the seven countries included in the
first executive order but leave out Iraq. That nation will increase
cooperation with the United States on additional security vetting under
separate negotiations and its citizens are not subject to the new order,
according to a fact sheet provided by the administration. A
Department of Homeland official, speaking on the condition of anonymity
on a call with reporters, said Iraq was “treated differently” in part
because the country had agreed to “timely repatriation” of their
citizens if they were ordered deported from the United States.
The
new order provides other exceptions not contained explicitly in
previous versions: for travelers from those countries who are legal
permanent residents of the United States, dual nationals who use a
passport from another country and those who have been granted asylum or
refugee status. Anyone who holds a visa now should be able to get into
the country without any problems, though those whose visas expire will
have to reapply, officials said.
Officials also attempted to lay
out a more robust national security justification for the order,
claiming that it was needed because 300 people who entered the country
as refugees were the subject of counterterrorism investigations.
The
officials, though, declined to say from which countries those people
came, and they declined to detail the people’s current immigration
status.