Visa applicants who were denied under former President Donald Trump’s travel ban may reapply for consideration following a Biden administration executive order on his first day in office.
State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday said that “applicants” will “no longer be denied on the basis of nationality,” and those who were “may seek re-adjudication without resubmitting their application forms or paying any additional fees.”
On Jan. 20, President Biden signed Proclamation 10141, titled “Ending Discriminatory Bans on Entry to the United States,” which revoked two of Trump’s 2017 orders that forbade the entry of citizens from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and other places deemed to be terrorist hotbeds by the Department of Homeland Security. The Trump administration denied roughly 41,000 applications since December 2017.
Biden’s Day One move also included a provision “to provide a report including a proposal for individuals whose immigrant visa applications were denied” by the former president’s policies.
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“The United States was built on a foundation of religious freedom and tolerance, a principle enshrined in the United States Constitution,” Biden wrote at the time of the proclamation. “Nevertheless, the previous administration enacted a number of Executive Orders and Presidential Proclamations that prevented certain individuals from entering the United States — first from primarily Muslim countries, and later, from largely African countries. Those actions are a stain on our national conscience and are inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”
The State Department said Trump’s bans “were a stain on our national conscience, contravened our values, jeopardized our alliances and partnerships, separated loved ones, and undermined our national security.”
Biden on Jan. 20 also vowed to put forth a “rigorous” and “individualized vetting system” for the influx of applications and acknowledged the possibility of “threats” to the U.S.
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“Make no mistake: Where there are threats to our nation, we will address them,” he wrote. “Where there are opportunities to strengthen information-sharing with partners, we will pursue them. And when visa applicants request entry to the United States, we will apply a rigorous, individualized vetting system. But we will not turn our backs on our values with discriminatory bans on entry into the United States.”
