Citizens of 8 countries, including Palestinians, banned from entering the United States

The administration of US President Donald Trump has completely banned citizens of 8 countries, including Palestinian passport holders, from entering the United States. The countries are Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Laos and Syria.

This information was announced in a statement issued by the White House, the official residence and office of the US President in Washington yesterday. It said, "This ban is imposed due to demonstrable, persistent and serious deficiencies in screening, vetting and information sharing to ensure the protection of the United States and its citizens from national and public security threats."

The statement said that the ban will be implemented from January 1, 2026.

Earlier, the US suspended all immigration-related activities for citizens of 19 countries in the last week of November. These 19 countries are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Burundi, Chad, Cuba, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Sierra Leone, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Venezuela and Yemen.

Later, on December 4, the country's Home Affairs Minister Christy Noam told the US media outlet Fox News in an interview that the Trump administration has decided to increase the number of countries on this list to at least 32. However, she did not mention the names of the remaining 13 countries.

Recently, 15 Jews were killed in a shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia's commercial capital. The Trump administration's action against the Palestinians in response to this incident was not unexpected.

However, the imposition of sanctions on Syrian citizens was not expected. Because just a few days ago, Syrian President Ahmed Shara met with Trump at the White House. The former Al-Qaeda militant Shara had US sanctions against him, which were lifted before his visit to the White House.

However, the Trump administration has recently taken note of the incident of the killing of two US soldiers and one of their interpreters in an attack by the international armed group ISIS in Syria. On Saturday, Trump described the attack as “horrific” on his social media account Truth Social and announced that he would take serious steps in response to it.

The White House’s statement yesterday said, “Syria is emerging from a long civil war and internal conflict. Although the country is working to address its security challenges in close coordination with the United States, Syria lacks a competent and sufficient central authority to issue passports or citizenship documents and does not have a proper screening and verification system.”

Source: Al Jazeera