(Courtesy AP)
The United States said Tuesday that citizens of Chad would be able to receive visas again because the African nation has been removed from the Trump administration’s travel ban list.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump had signed a proclamation announcing Chad had “improved its identity-management and information sharing practices” enough to be taken off the list.
The travel restrictions placed on Chad will be terminated Friday.
The Trump administration added Chad to its travel ban list last September because of an office supply glitch that prevented Chad from supplying homeland security officials with recent samples of its passports. U.S. officials also said Chad was unable to adequately share public safety and terrorism-related information with U.S. officials who screen foreigners seeking to enter the country.
Chad has been a key U.S. counterterrorism partner in the fight against threats to Africa’s Sahel region posed by al-Qaida affiliates like Boko Haram and the newly designated West Africa wing of the Islamic State group.
Trump’s critics have said his travel ban unfairly singled out Muslims, and violated U.S. law and the Constitution.
Courts struck down the first two versions of Trump’s travel ban, and the current one is narrower in scope than its predecessors. The U.S. Supreme Court will consider its legality this spring, and a decision is expected in June.
Chad has been an ally of the United States in fighting jihadist groups — some linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State — in the Sahel.
