On Wednesday, the Trump administration announced that it has given the State Department orders to limit some visas for countries, such as Cambodia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Eritrea, due to their refusal to allow their own citizens to return after deportation from the US.
In a statement, Elaine Duke, the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, said that all countries have an obligation to accept nationals removed from the US under international law. She added that the countries named have failed to meet that responsibility. Duke says that it is routine for the US to document and accept the return of its own citizens from foreign governments, as do most other nations, and that the new sanctions on countries failing to do so will end that one-way street.
According to Thomas Homan, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, harm has come to US citizens, because of the refusal of foreign governments to repatriate their own citizens. He added that the sanctions will ensure the problem does not worsen, while his organization continues to find and deport dangerous criminal immigrants from the US.
State Secretary, Rex Tillerson, has told US consular officials in the four named countries that they should impose US visa restrictions on some categories of applicants, which will be determined on a nation-by-nation basis. The sanctions are likely to be expanded to other US visa categories if the countries continue to refuse to cooperate on returning deported citizens.