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The U.S. will require all other countries to share information to help it vet visa applicants, Reuters reported, and countries that do not comply or make progress toward doing so within 50 days may face travel-related sanctions. The sanctions could include bans on travel for “certain categories” of their citizens.
The memo is the product of a worldwide review of visa-vetting standards called for in President Trump’s March 6 executive order, in which he also imposed a ban on travel for nationals of six Muslim-majority countries. A limited version of that ban went into effect late last month.
Reuters quotes a U.S. State Department cable sent to all diplomatic posts Wednesday outlining the U.S.’s expectations of other countries in terms of information sharing, including that they issue, or plan to issue, electronic passports and that they regularly report lost and stolen passports to the international policing organization Interpol. The memo, published by Reuters in full, also states that “countries should make available any other identity information at the request of the U.S. including, as appropriate, additional biographic and biometric data and relevant immigration status.”
The U.S. also wants countries to share information related to criminal histories of visa applicants and to share information on “individuals it knows or has reasonable grounds to believe are terrorists.”
The memo stipulates that other countries “should take measures to ensure that they are not and do not have the potential to become a terrorist safe haven” and that they should accept the repatriation of their citizens who are deported from the United States.
The memo seeks to “underscore that while it is not our goal to impose a ban on immigration benefits, including visas, for citizens of any country, these standards are designed to mitigate risk and failure to make progress could lead to security measures by the [U.S. government], including a presidential proclamation that would prohibit the entry of certain categories of foreign nationals of noncompliant countries.”
