Newly inaugurated United States President, Joe Biden has cancelled the travel ban imposed on some countries by the administration of Donald Trump.
Some of the countries that benefited from the cancellation order include Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, Yemen and others.
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Biden took the steps as part of his first acts in office when he signed 17 executive orders on Wednesday.
Signing the executive orders in the White House, Biden declared “there’s no time to waste.” and then added that “these are just all starting points.”
Some civil rights organization had previously labelled the travel ban imposed by the Trump administration as a “cruel Muslim ban that targeted Africans.”
Advert Africa recalls Donald Trump during his tenure as the US President, imposed an immigration visa ban on Nigeria and some other countries.
The Wall Street Journal quoted Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as saying the new immigration restrictions were designed to “address security concerns in the way the banned countries track their own citizens, share information with the U.S. and cooperate on immigration matters”.
The proclamation will however not take effect until February 22, 2020.
Other countries said to be affected by the new ban are Eritrea, Sudan, Tanzania, Myanmar, and Kyrgyzstan.
The total number of countries on the restricted travel list now stands at 13.
On his part, however, President Biden explained that the travel ban policy is discriminatory in nature and doesn’t represent the values of the United States of America.
