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10-03-2021
WASHINGTON: The US State Department on Monday announced that people whose US visa applications were rejected due to former president Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ can now reapply for it.
Donald Trump had imposed a travel ban on 13 mostly Muslim-majority and African countries in 2017.
President Joe Biden had overturned Trump’s so-called Muslim ban on January 20, his first day in office, calling it “a stain on our national conscience” in his proclamation.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said applicants who were refused visas prior to January 20, 2020, must submit new applications and pay a new application fee. Those who were denied on or after January 20, 2020, may seek reconsideration without re-submitting their applications and do not have to pay additional fees, Price said.
Applicants selected in the diversity visa lottery prior to the current fiscal year are barred by US law from being issued visas if they have not gotten them already, he said. The diversity lottery aims to accept immigrants from countries that are not normally awarded many visas.
Since December 2017, after a revised version of the original travel ban was upheld by the US Supreme Court, some 40,000 people have been barred from entering the United States under the ban, according to State Department data.
During the Trump administration, some countries were added and others dropped from the list. At the end of Trump’s presidency, it comprised Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Venezuela and Yemen. (Int’l News Desk)
