Kyrgyzstan protests inclusion in Trump's latest travel restrictions
Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry has slammed the latest US move to impose travel restrictions on citizens of more countries, including the central Asian country, vowing that the selective action has damaged mutual ties.
The country’s ministry of foreign affairs summoned the American ambassador to Bishkek, Donald Lu, on Saturday to demand explanation for the restrictions, which he tied to Kyrgyzstan’s failure to introduce biometric passports.
The controversial development came after US President Donald Trump slapped immigration restrictions Friday against citizens of six Asian and African countries -- Nigeria, Myanmar, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Sudan and Tanzania -- adding them to a list of nations already targeted by his contentious travel ban.
However, following Lu’s justification of the move, the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry insisted that other countries without biometric passports had not been included in the latest wave of immigration restrictions.
"At the same time, out of more than 80 countries where biometric passports have not yet been introduced, the limitations (were applied) selectively to only a few," the ministry said in a statement.
"In this way, significant damage has been done to Kyrgyz-American relations," it further complained.
The latest directive – due to go into effect on February 22 -- is less sweeping than the travel ban Trump imposed in January 2017, which banned citizens of mostly Muslim-majority nations from entering US territory. The previous list included: Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security, only certain visa categories would be targeted in the latest directive, with the focus primarily on people seeking to move to the United States rather than those simply desiring to visit.
The announcement will likely trigger another hot debate over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Immediately after the ban was announced, a number of immigration related institutions censured the move.
“The Trump administration’s efforts to expand the ban are offensive and actually harmful to our national security,” said executive director of Amnesty International’s US chapter, Margaret Huang, in a statement.
“Our research has demonstrated how every version of this ban has shown itself to be deadly, dangerous and disastrous. This policy is rooted in hate, white supremacy and racism,” she emphasized.
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