The administration of outgoing US President, Donald Trump, has imposed temporary travel restrictions on 15 African countries, including Libya.
Persons applying for visa to the United States are obliged to provide a US$15,000 guarantee to obtain a visa for work or tourism purposes.
The new temporary travel measure comes into force from 24 December to 24 June 2021, according to a document released on the website of the US State Department on Wednesday.
In addition to Libya, other African countries affected by the new measure are Angola, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sudan, Mauritania and Sao Tome and Principe.
The temporary rule demands that visa seekers, as temporary visitors for job, leisure or business who come from countries where demands for visas are high, must pay a refundable fees of 5,000, 10,000 or 15,000 US dollars, which will be directly sent back to a US customs and immigration application organisation with the possibility for refund.
Washington focused on the “report of the US Home Security Department for the 2019 exercise to justify the reason for the increase in the visa fees for the concerned countries, in which residence rates after visa exceeded 10% or more”.
The Department said it would announce any future decision concerning the potential use of those visa papers to respond to the US national security and foreign policy goals.
President Trump had previously tightened the immigration and refugee reception bills once he took office.
In January 2017, a US decree banned the entry for citizens from seven Islamic countries, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Yemen and Somalia.
Elected president Joe Biden has pledged to cancel a large number of immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, as the cancellation procedures will take months, even years, before coming into force. (PANA/NAN)
