The United States Government has imposed an immigration visa ban on Nigeria.
Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan are the other countries affected by this new policy expected to take effect from February 21, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, was quoted as saying that the new immigration restrictions were designed to “address security concerns in the way the banned countries track their own citizens, share information with the U.S. and cooperate on immigration matters”.
Nigerians and nationals of other affected countries would not be allowed to apply for visas to immigrate to the US under the policy the policy designed to “tighten security for countries that don’t comply with the US minimum security standards or cooperate to prevent illegal immigration”.
However, the new restriction would apply only to new visa applications as immigrants issued valid visas before that date will still be able to move to the US.
According to The Wall Street Journal, two other countries, Sudan and Tanzania, would be barred from participating in the diversity visa lottery, which randomly awards green cards to 50,000 immigrants from underrepresented countries annually.
The six countries would join a list of seven nations, most of them Muslim-majority, that faced significant travel restrictions under the original travel ban issued in 2017 by the US Government.
