President Donald Trump is reportedly considering ramping up the number of countries that are on the travel ban list, which targets countries that have strong ties to terrorism.
The Associated Press spoke to several people in the Trump administration who reportedly said that the expanded travel ban list was “timed to coincide with the third anniversary of Trump’s January 2017 executive order” and reportedly included up to seven new countries.
“The countries on the proposed expansion list include allies that fall short on certain security measures,” The AP added. “The additional restrictions were proposed by Department of Homeland Security officials following a review of security protocols and ‘identity management’ for about 200 countries, according to the person.”
White House House spokesman Hogan Gidley did not confirm the plan, but did praise the current version of the travel ban.
“The Travel Ban has been very successful in protecting our Country and raising the security baseline around the world,” Gidley said in a statement to the AP. “While there are no new announcements at this time, common-sense and national security both dictate that if a country wants to fully participate in U.S. immigration programs, they should also comply with all security and counter-terrorism measures – because we do not want to import terrorism or any other national security threat into the United States.”
The most current travel ban list includes: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, as well as Venezuela and North Korea.
Democrats and the media have falsely claimed that the Trump administration’s travel ban was a “Muslim ban,” despite the fact that two of the countries on the list – Venezuela and North Korea – have little to no people of Islamic faith in their countries.
The AP seemingly tried to frame their report in a way that further promoted those false claims by noting that a “majority” of the new countries that would be added to the list were “Muslim” countries.