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US President Donald Trump issued an expanded version of his travel ban yesterday, an official said. The move was slammed by immigrant advocates and critics who say the policy discriminates against Muslims and others. 

The US will suspend the issuance of visas that can lead to permanent residency for nationals of Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar and Nigeria, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said during a call with reporters. 

Non-immigrant visas were not affected for the additional countries, Wolf said. Those visas are given to people travelling to the US for a temporary stay, including tourists, those doing business or people seeking medical treatment. During December 2019, for example, about 650 760 non-immigrant visas were granted by the US in total.

The US government will also stop issuing “diversity visas” to nationals of Sudan and Tanzania,

Those visas — which Trump has criticised in the past — are available by lottery for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.

Wolf said the six countries failed to meet US security and information-sharing standards, which necessitated the new restrictions. The problems Wolf cited ranged from subpar passport technology to a failure to sufficiently exchange information on “terrorism” suspects and criminals. “These countries, for the most part, want to be helpful,” Wolf said, “but for a variety of different reasons simply failed to meet those minimum requirements that we laid out.”

The presidential proclamation will take effect on February 21. 

The original travel ban — issued during Trump’s first week in office in January 2017 — barred nearly all immigrants and travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations. It caused widespread outrage and chaos at airports across the US. The policy was revised amid court challenges, but the US Supreme Court ultimately upheld it in June 2018.

The existing version of the ban applies to the Muslim-majority nations of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. North Korea and Venezuela also face visa restrictions, but those measures affect relatively few travellers.

Those restrictions will remain in place, Wolf said.

Trump has made his immigration crackdown a focus of his 2020 re-election campaign and is expected to press the issue in the months ahead.

Critics contend the ban disproportionately targets Muslim-majority nations. In 2015, during Trump’s campaign for president, he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.

Three of the nations included in the updated ban — Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria and Sudan — have majority Muslim populations. Eritrea and Tanzania have sizable Muslim minorities. — Al Jazeera