White House has rejected reports that Pakistan will also be included in the list of countries facing travel ban.
“There are no immediate plans by the Trump administration to impose travel ban on any other country. The countries which were reluctant to provide required information to the United States of America were named in the Executive Order,” a White House spokesperson said to a media query Saturday.
He said that concerned authorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Lebanon provided the required details; however, in case these countries fail to continue the required cooperation, they can also be put in the list along with the seven countries.
Earlier a top White House official suggested that more countries like Pakistan could be added to the ban list of seven Muslim countries.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus while defending US president Donald Trump’s decision in an interview, said, “You can point to other countries that have similar problems like Pakistan and others — perhaps we need to take it further,”
Priebus said during the interview that immediate steps to be taken included further vetting for people travelling in and out of those countries for now.
He added that if the administration tipped off their decision beforehand, it could’ve meant that ‘potential terrorists’ would’ve tried to enter the US.
“We’re not going to advertise to the world that we’re going to put a stop or at least further vetting on travel in and out of our country from these seven places,” he said.
“All this is, is identifying the seven countries — and the reason we chose those seven countries is those were the seven countries that both the Congress and the Obama administration identified as being the seven countries that were most identifiable with dangerous terrorism taking place in their country,” Priebus explained.
