Chad has announced it will suspend issuing visas to U.S. citizens, retaliating against the Trump administration’s ban on Chadians visiting the United States.<\/p>\n
The decision follows Trump’s announcement of a visa ban on 12 countries, including Chad, citing “deficient” screening and vetting processes and a history of refusing to repatriate citizens who overstay in the U.S.<\/p>\n
The new ban targets Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.<\/p>\n
There will also be heightened restrictions on visitors from seven others in the new travel policy, which takes effect Monday at 12:01 a.m.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post, Chad\u2019s president on Thursday said he is directing his government to suspend visas to U.S. citizens \u201cin accordance with the principles of reciprocity.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cChad has no planes to offer, no billions of dollars to give but Chad has his dignity and pride,\u201d Deby said, referring to the $400 million luxury plane offered to his administration as a gift by the ruling family of Qatar.<\/p>\n
Chad’s President Mahamat Idriss DebyThe new travel policy has triggered varied reactions from Africa, whose countries make up seven of the 12 countries affected by Trump\u2019s outright visa ban with some exemptions.<\/p>\n
In the Republic of Congo, government spokesperson Thierry Moungalla said he believes the country was among those affected because of a \u201cmisunderstanding\u201d over an armed attack in the U.S. with the perpetrators \u201cmistaken\u201d to be from the Republic of Congo. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, Congo is not a terrorist country, is not home to any terrorist, is not known to have a terrorist vocation. So we think that this is a misunderstanding and I believe that in the coming hours, the competent diplomatic services of the government will contact the American authorities here,\u201d he said in the capital of Brazzaville.<\/p>\n
In Sierra Leone, among countries with heightened travel restrictions, Information Minister Chernor Bah said the country is committed to addressing the concerns that prompted the ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will work with U.S. authorities to ensure progress,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chad has announced it will suspend issuing visas to U.S. citizens, retaliating against the Trump administration’s ban on Chadians visiting the United States. The decision follows Trump’s announcement of a visa ban on 12 countries, including Chad, citing “deficient” screening and vetting processes and a history of refusing to repatriate citizens who overstay in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n