Trump’s revised travel ban will target same countries: report

President Trump’s revised immigration executive order will reportedly include the same countries as the initial order, which temporarily barred refugees and immigrants from seven predominately Muslim countries from entering the U.S., The Associated Press reported.

The president’s new order, expected to be released this week, will not include people who already have a visa to travel to the U.S. It will also exempt people who hold green cards and who are dual citizens of the U.S. and one of the targeted countries.

The new order will no longer tell authorities to specifically single out and reject Syrian refugees.

{mosads}The revised order could change before it is signed by the president, the AP noted.

The president issued his initial travel ban late last month. That order barred people from seven dominantly Muslim nations — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Libya — from entering the U.S. for 90 days; halted U.S. refugee resettlement for 120 days; and suspended Syrian refugee acceptance indefinitely.

Trump faced immediate backlash after the implementation of the order, with demonstrators gathering across the country to protest the travel ban and lawmakers speaking out against it.

Trump and his team strongly denied the order amounted to a ban on Muslims.

Several groups filed lawsuits against the administration, before a federal judge in Seattle temporarily blocked the ban.

A San Francisco-based appeals court rejected the administration’s request earlier this month to lift a nationwide hold on the initial travel ban.

Trump said during a news conference last Thursday that he would be signing a revised travel ban “toward the beginning or middle” of next week.

“We’re issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country,” Trump said.

“So we’ll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that, at the same time we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people.”

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Saturday the new travel ban will likely exempt green-card holders.

“The president is contemplating issuing a tighter, more streamlined version of the first [executive order],” Kelly said at the Munich Security Conference, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“I will have, this time, the opportunity … to work the roll-out plan in particular to make sure that there’s no one in a sense caught in the system moving from overseas to our airports, which happened in the first release,” he said.