WASHINGTON – According to a CNN report the Trump Administration will soon issue visa sanctions if countries do not take back foreign nationals who are deported from the United States, according to a DHS spokesman.
The CNN report cites a DHS source close to the deliberations that say Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea and Sierra Leone are being targeted for the visa sanctions. Those countries have been deemed “recalcitrant”, a term that essentially means uncooperative.
President Donald Trump spoke about this topic during the presidential campaign.
“There are at least 23 countries that refuse to take their people back after they’ve been ordered to leave the United States, including large numbers of violent criminals. They won’t take them back. So we say, ‘OK, we’ll keep them.’ Not going to happen with me, not going to happen with me,” Trump said in a 2016 campaign speech.
The sanctions will impact people from those countries applying for visas in the United States. What the sanctions will look like have still not been determined by the Department of State but they told CNN the process of getting the sanctions in place has already begun.
“That process includes internal discussions with, and official notification to, affected countries. We are not going to get ahead of that process. When we have completed the process, information will be available about the terms of the visa suspension,” the official told CNN.
The United States has regularly kept track of which countries were not cooperating with deportations but only two countries have ever been hit with sanctions.
A DHS spokesman says that currently 12 countries have been identified as being uncooperative with deportations and they include China and Cuba.