The United States has said that it notified all foreign governments including Nigeria about the identity-management and information-sharing criteria in 2019.
This was contained in the full report of the visa restrictions titled, ‘Proclamation on improving enhanced vetting capabilities and process’ published on www.whitehouse.gov.
According to the document, the U.S. described Nigeria as one of the worst-performing countries on the performance metrics which it said led to the imposition of migrant visa restriction on the country.
The new visa regime announced by the US Government on January 31, involves the suspension of the issuance of ‘immigrant visas’ to Nigerian passport holders.
It comes into effect on February 21.
Apart from Nigeria, others on the list are Eritrea, Myanmar, Tanzania, Sudan and Kyrgyzstan.
It read, “The process began on March 11, 2019, when the United States Government formally notified all foreign governments (except for Iran, Syria, and North Korea) about the refined performance metrics for the identity-management and information-sharing criteria.”