The Obama administration will announce as early as Thursday its plan to introduce new visa requirements for European travellers who are dual nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria, or who have visited any of these countries in the last five years.
\nU.S. officials and congressional aides involved in discussions say the Homeland Security Department will outline how it will phase in the new rule, designed to make it harder for Europeans who have fought for the Islamic State to enter the United States.
\nThe law passed by Congress in December only affects a minority of Europeans, but it has prompted great concern in countries whose citizens generally enjoy visa-free travel to the United States.
\nAnd it has drawn Iranian charges that the U.S. is violating last summer\u2019s nuclear accord by penalising legitimate business travel to the Islamic Republic.
\nIraq and Syria were targeted specifically because the Islamic State has seized significant territory in each country for its would-be caliphate. Iran and Sudan, like Syria, are designated by the U.S. as state sponsors of terrorism.
\nThe officials and aides weren\u2019t authorised to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
\nThe biggest question mark concerns groups of individuals that could be exempted from the law, allowing them to continue travelling to the U.S. under the Visa Waiver Program.
\nAccording to a congressional aide, the administration will create exceptions for those who travelled to any of the four countries for government or United Nations work, or for humanitarian or journalistic reasons. Legitimate business with Iran also wouldn\u2019t be punished. No waivers appear to apply to dual nationals.
\nIt\u2019s unclear if such carve-outs would be supported by Congress; Republican aides say the bipartisan legislation wasn\u2019t intended to provide such wide discretion to the executive branch. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Obama administration will announce as early as Thursday its plan to introduce new visa requirements for European travellers who are dual nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria, or who have visited any of these countries in the last five years. U.S. officials and congressional aides involved in discussions say the Homeland Security Department will outline how it will phase in the new rule, designed to make it harder for Europeans who have fought for the Islamic State to enter the United States. The law passed by Congress in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1972,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1973,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1971\/revisions\/1973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}