Trump administration considers additional vetting for 14 more countries

CAIRO – 7 March 2017: The U.S. is considering additional vetting for 14 countries not on its travel ban list, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly

told CNN

Tuesday.


Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Kelly said, “There will probably be other countries we will look at.” He also said he does not expect the list of countries subject to the controversial travel ban to grow. Rather, the additional countries will be subject to additional vetting.


"There will be a number of them out there, I don't want to speculate. There are probably 13 or 14 countries, not all of them Muslim countries, not all of them in the Middle East, that have questionable vetting procedures we can rely on,” he said. “And if we overlay additional vetting procedures, the chances are these countries will be minimum citizens from those countries that visit our country."


On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new executive order that bans immigration from six Muslim-majority countries, dropping Iraq from the previous order issued in late January.


The six countries include Iran, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan and Libya. Citizens from these countries will be blocked from obtaining visas to the U.S. for at least 90 days.