Trump keeps Iraq out of revised travel ban

US president signs narrower order targeting six Muslim countries, directive gets lowkey rollout

WASHINGTON In several major departures from its earlier travel ban, the Donald Trump administration’s new order issued on Monday temporarily bars citizens of six Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States and allows all those who have valid visas.

The new order also doesn’t indefinitely bar Syrian refugees, as proposed in the earlier one, and, in yet another change, removes a provision prioritising Christians fleeing persecution from Christian-minority parts of the world.

It goes into effect from March 16, not immediately.

President Trump signed the new order in the White House, but without the fanfare, photoops and remarks that accompanied the earlier order, which was mired in controversy from the minute it rolled out on January 27. Details of the new travel ban were announced instead by secretaries of state and homeland security Rex Tillerson and John Kelly and attorney general Jeff Sessions, heads so the departments that will play critical roles in its implementation.

The purpose, as before, was to prevent terrorists — “bad dudes”, Trump has called them — from entering the US.

“This revised order will bolster security of the US and her allies,” Tillerson said in a rare news appearance. “The American people can have confidence we are identifying ways to improve vetting process; keep terrorists from entering.”

Sessions said, “The majority of people convicted in our courts for terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from abroad. We also know that people seeking to support or commit terrorist attacks here will try to enter through our refugee program. In fact, today more than 300 people who came here as refugees are under FBI investigation for potential terrorism-related activities.”

The new order is limited in scope and nature. It applies to six countries, against seven earlier, with Iraq being dropped under pressure from Iraq and the US departments of defense and state.

REUTERS FBI director James Comey on Sunday took the extraordinary step of asking the justice department to publicly refute Trump’s unsubstantiated accusation that Barack Obama (right) tapped his phone during last year’s election campaign.