WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering targeting the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States that would be broader than the restrictions imposed during President Donald Trump’s first term, according to officials familiar with the matter.
A draft list of recommendations developed by diplomatic and security officials suggests a “red” list of 11 countries whose citizens would be flatly barred from entering the United States. They are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen, the officials said.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations, cautioned that the list had been developed by the State Department several weeks ago and that changes were likely by the time it reached the White House.
Officials at embassies and in regional bureaus at the State Department, and security specialists at other departments and intelligence agencies, have been reviewing the draft. They are providing comment about whether descriptions of deficiencies in particular countries are accurate or whether there are policy reasons — such as not risking disruption to cooperation on some other priority — to reconsider including some.
The draft proposal also included an “orange” list of 10 countries for which travel would be restricted but not cut off. In those cases, affluent business travelers might be allowed to enter, but not people traveling on immigrant or tourist visas.
Citizens on that list would also be subjected to mandatory in-person interviews in order to receive a visa. It included Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan.
When he took office Jan. 20, Trump issued an executive order requiring the State Department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
He gave the department 60 days to finish a report for the White House with that list, meaning it is due next week. The State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has taken the lead, and the order said the Justice and Homeland Security departments and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were to assist with the effort.