The U.S. Considering Plan To Put New Travel Restrictions On African Countries

A new report suggests the United States government is planning to put stricter travel restrictions for countries whose nationals frequently overstay their visas, according to a Department of Homeland Security official.

Chad, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Eritrea, Liberia, Somalia, and South Sudan are among the African countries that have the highest rates of people who overstay temporary visas for short-term tourist and business visas, reported Africa News.

President Donald Trump led government has been continuously working to halt the flow of immigrants at the country’s southern border with Mexico but has devoted little attention to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who overstay a visa each year.

During an interview with the Wall Street Journal, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that reducing overstays remains a priority for the government.

According to a 2006 report by the Pew Research Center, it is estimated that up to 45 percent of the undocumented population entered the country on a valid visa, but did not depart. As per the organization’s latest analysis, around 11 million undocumented immigrants reside in the U.S.

In the fiscal year 2017, the Homeland Security Department counted 701,900 overstays of non-immigrant visas, which is just 1.3 percent of all short-term visitors to the U.S. in that year.

Previously, the Trump administration had imposed a travel ban on Muslim-majority nations including Somalia, Sudan, and Libya. The U.S. President has also been accused of referring to Haiti and some African nations as “shithole countries” and questioning why their nationals should be admitted to the U.S.

Notably, the United States slapped a visa ban on the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda, earlier this month as she instituted investigations into possible war crimes committed by U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan.

Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, has previously warned that he would withdraw or deny visas to any ICC staff involved in probing any such allegations.