The previous travel ban submitted by the new team in the White House was blocked in the federal courts. Just recently, President Donald Trump has released a new executive order, temporarily barring travel to the US for residents of six Muslim-majority countries awaiting revision of visa procedures.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Homeland Security, and Secretary John Kelly, announced the new Executive Order on March 6. The order stops the issuance of new US visas to citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for the next 90 days.
In the January travel ban, Iraq was included in the list of countries blocked from entering the US. However, it was taken off the list this time after the government in Baghdad agreed to increase mutual aid with the US on background checks for its citizens applying for visas, RT reported. Tillerson acknowledged the government in Baghdad for cooperating with the State Department on improving selection, and called the order as an important measure for protecting US national security.
The new executive order imposes a 120-day halt on refugee admissions from the six countries as well. Legal permanent residents or green card holders from the countries will not be affected, according to a fact sheet distributed by the administration. The new travel ban also includes exemptions such as business or medical travel and gives room for waivers on a case-to-case basis, says The Washington Post.
Within the 90-day review period, Homeland Security must outline a new set of requirements when traveling to the US as well as suggest restraints for countries that do not meet the terms. Sessions was quoted as saying that like every nation, the US has the right to control who gets in the country and to bar those who would do harm to its citizens. He further added that the Department of Justice respects the new executive order as a lawful and proper exercise of presidential authority, and that they will both enforce and defend it.
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