After issuing a new executive order on Monday to temporarily bar the entry of citizens from six predominantly Muslim nations, the Donald Trump administration is preparing to ask 13-14 other nations with unsatisfactory vetting procedures to beef up their methods in order to escape similar travel restrictions.
“There’s probably 13 or 14 countries, not all of them Muslim countries, not all of them in the Middle East, that have questionable vetting procedures we can rely on,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told CNN.
Kelly did not name the countries he had in mind, even as critics of Trump’s travel ban continue to hold the view that ones like Pakistan and South Africa, given the past involvement of their nationals in acts of terrorism in the US, merit punitive action than the six nations targeted by Washington.
Saying he does not expect an expansion of the list of countries under the travel ban, Kelly commented: “But there are countries out there that we will ask, like Iraq has done... to cooperate with us better, to get us the information we need to safeguard the country.”
Trump’s new executive order reinstituting the temporary ban on nationals of Iran, libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, while leaving out Iraq, has come weeks after the earlier one was stayed by a Seattle court, with a San Francisco-based Appeals Court upholding the stay.
The new order has been so crafted as to avoid legal pitfalls, but the possibility of fresh legal challenges still remains with some critics continuing to brand it as one targeting Muslims.
New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, said he is scrutinizing the new order and stands ready to challenge it. “While the White House may have made changes to the ban, the intent to discriminate against Muslims remains clear,” he said. “This doesn’t just harm the families caught in the chaos of President Trump’s draconian policies – it’s diametrically opposed to our values, and makes us less safe.”
In Seattle, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, another Democrat who successfully halted Trump’s first travel ban, said he has concerns about the new version as well, but is unsure if he will challenge it. “I do not take lightly suing the president of the United States,” he told reporters.