The United States President, Mr Donald Trump is considering imposing a travel ban on dozens of countries.
In a report yesterday, Reuters cited an internal memo and officials familiar with the matter.
The memo lists a total of 43 countries divided into three groups: red, orange, and yellow.
The list comprises several African countries, with African economic powerhouses like Nigeria, South Africa, Algeria, and Egypt excluded.
The red group consists of 11 countries- Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Bhutan, Venezuela, North Korea, Yemen, and Somalia- whose nationals would be barred from entering the US.
The orange group comprises 10 countries whose visas would be sharply restricted. They include Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Pakistan, Laos, Turkmenistan, Haiti, and Eritrea.
The countries in the last group were given 60 days to address concerns.
The nations on the 22-country yellow list include Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.
The New York Times had first reported the list of countries earmarked for the proposed visa ban.
However, a US official told Reuters that there could be changes on the list and that it was yet to be approved by the administration, including Marco Rubio, the secretary of state.
The proposal is part of an immigration crackdown that Trump launched at the start of his second term in January.
Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St.Lucia—island countries on the yellow list—are popular options for purchasing citizenship by investment.
In 2023, the European Union (EU) raised security concerns over the trade in ‘golden passports’ after discovering that the Caribbean states sold citizenship to 88,000 individuals from nations like Iran, Nigeria, Russia, and China.
The EU had said it was seeking to review its visa mechanism in countries that offer investor citizenship schemes to countries with corruption perceptions and poor human rights records.
Dominica, an island with a population of just over 70,000, had reportedly issued 34,500 passports as of 2023.
St Kitts and Nevis, with a population of 48,000, was said to have issued 36,700 passports.
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