BREAKING NEWS

Trump mulls new order to replace travel ban, no decision yet

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump is considering a new order to replace his soon-to-expire travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries that would be tailored on a country-by-country basis to protect the United States from attacks, US officials said on Friday.
With the current ban on people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen due to expire on Sunday, Trump was given recommendations by Elaine Duke, the acting homeland security secretary, but has not yet made a decision on the details of the new order, the officials told reporters.
The officials declined to say which or how many countries would be targeted.
White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters in a conference call that while "we can't get into decision-making," the next step will be a presidential proclamation setting out the new policy. He declined to say when that would come.
Trump's six-nation travel ban was laid out in a March 6 executive order that was blocked by federal courts before being allowed to go into effect with some limits by the US Supreme Court in June.
The expiring ban blocked entry into the United States by people from the six countries and locked out most aspiring refugees for 120 days to give Trump's administration time to conduct a worldwide review of US vetting procedures for foreign visitors. The existing refugee ban expires on Oct. 24.
"We need to know who is coming into our country," Miles Taylor, counselor to the secretary of homeland security, said. "We should be able to validate their identities and we should be able to confirm that our foreign partners do not have information suggesting such individuals may represent a threat to the United States.
"That is a fundamental obligation of the US government, and it's something that drove this process from start to finish."
Under the recommendations Trump is weighing, there would be restrictions on US entry that differ by nation, based on cooperation with American security mandates, the threat the United States believes each country presents and other variables, the officials said.