Andrew Sage

So totally banned now from getting new visas to enter the USA are citizens of Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan, and Syria, as well as the Palestinian Authority.

The Syria one is particularly wild because al-Sharaf just visited the White House.

There are, like, individual case-by-case exceptions, right?

It's not that they wouldn't block Alshara, I'm sure.

But, like, it's interesting to look at the justifications that they use here.

What they are basically saying, I'll just read a couple of them here to give you an example, right?

Quote, "...at least one country lacks mechanisms in hospitals to ensure births are reported, and widespread corruption, combined with a general lack of vecking and poor record-keeping..."

result in any non-citizen being able to obtain any civil document from that country, particularly if that person is willing to pay a fee or engage an individual that specializes in assisting in such fraud.

They go on to basically document failures in government bureaucracy.

They talk about corruption.

They talk about places where birth certificates are just written by hand.

They talk about places where the government does not control all the territory, prevalence of crime, places which offer citizenship by investment without physical residence.

They also talk about some of these countries not being willing to accept their nationals to the U.S.

deports.

And again, visa overstay rates, right, which is what they spoke about last time.

What is getting less reporting, or at least was this morning when I looked, was that they have removed exemptions which existed for the previous 19.

These include family member visas, right?

So that means that, for instance, someone who could have themselves become a permanent resident or even a citizen now cannot stay.

bring a family member, say a spouse, a sibling, et cetera, across, even though those people were previously vetted.

And it appears there is certain categories of SIVs are exempt, but I believe not all SIVs.