DHS head: US may seek better vetting from 13 or 14 more nations

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly says the U.S. may want improved vetting procedures for travelers from as many as 14 countries.

“There’s about 13 or 14 other countries out there, not all of them Muslim countries, not all of them in the Middle East, that have very questionable vetting procedures that we can rely on,” he said Monday on CNN’s “The Situation Room” without identifying which nations he meant.

“We’re now looking at other countries and when we come up with additional vetting to protect the nation better than it’s been protected, there will probably be other countries that we look at and say, ‘We want you to improve,’” the retired Marine Corps. general added.

{mosads}“And then if we overlay additional vetting procedures, the chances are there will be minimum citizens from those countries visiting that visit our country.”

The interview came hours after the Trump administration rolled out an updated travel ban aimed at moving past the legal battles that consumed the first iteration of the executive order. The revised executive order prohibits people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for 90 days and halts U.S. refugee resettlement for 120 days.

But Kelly said Monday evening that other nations are not likely to be impacted by President Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen

“I don’t believe that the list will be expanded, but there are countries out there that we will ask, like Iraq has done by the involvement of their prime minister, to cooperate with us better and get us the information we need to safeguard the country,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “

“You’ve referred to it and others have referred to it as a ‘travel ban.’ We’ve always looked at it as a pause from those seven nations, now six, until we can get our arms around exactly how good we can vet individuals from those countries.”

Trump earlier Monday signed a new executive order on immigration including key changes meant to help it survive the legal challenges that torpedoed his original travel ban.

The new order keeps a 90-day ban on travelers from but no longer lists Iraq among the impacted nations.

The measure also retains a 120-day freeze on general refugee admissions into the U.S. but no longer indefinitely halts Syrian refugees like the first version did.

The new policy also provides clearer language on who is exempted from the ban, specifying legal permanent residents of the U.S. and people holding a valid visa at the time of its signing.

Dual nationals using a passport from an unlisted country and foreign nationals traveling for diplomatic reasons are also unaffected by the measure.

Officials said the new order will take effect March 16, giving airports, airlines and travelers 10 days to prepare for its effects.

Trump’s initial order in January sparked confusion at airports nationwide, with law enforcement officials unsure of how to best implement it.