Bhutan on a draft ‘Red List’ of 11 countries for a complete travel ban to the USA

Bhutan is on a draft ‘Red List’ along with 11 other countries for a complete travel ban to the USA.

This is according to a news report by The New York Times (NYT) on the issue.

The overall list is targeting the citizens of as many as 43 countries as part of a new ban on travel to the United States that would be broader than the restrictions imposed during President Trump’s first term, according to NYT.

The 43 countries are divided into three colour lists of Red, Orange and Yellow.

The draft Red list of 11 countries will have a complete travel ban and their citizens would be flatly barred from entering the United States. They are Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Officials told the NYT that the list had been
developed by the State Department several weeks ago, and that changes were likely by the time it reached the White House.

NYT said officials at embassies and in regional bureaus at the State Department, and security specialists at other departments and intelligence agencies, have been reviewing the draft. They are providing comment about whether descriptions of deficiencies in particular countries are
accurate or whether there are policy reasons — like not risking disruption to cooperation on some other priority — to reconsider including some.

There is a draft “orange” list of 10 countries for
which travel would be restricted but not cut off. In those cases, affluent business travellers might be allowed to enter , but not people traveling
on immigrant or tourist visas.

Citizens on that draft list would also be subjected to mandatory in-person interviews in order to receive a visa. It included Belarus, Eritrea, Haiti, Laos, Myanmar , Pakistan, Russia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Turkmenistan.

The NYT said when Trump took office on Jan. 20, he issued an executive order requiring the State Department to identify countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”
He gave the department 60 days to finish a report for the White House with that list, meaning it is due next week.
The State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs has taken the lead, and the order said the
Justice and Homeland Security Departments and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were to assist with the effort.

The NYT said some of the countries on the draft red and orange lists were sanctioned by Mr . Trump in his first-term travel bans, but many are new. Some share characteristics with the earlier lists — they are generally Muslim-majority or otherwise nonwhite, poor and have governments that are considered weak or corrupt.

But the reason several others were included was not immediately clear . Bhutan, for example, was proposed for an absolute ban on entry. NYT says the small Buddhist and Hindu country is sandwiched between China and India, neither of which were on any of the draft lists.

The proposal also includes a draft “yellow” list of 22 countries that would be given 60 days to clear up perceived deficiencies, with the threat of being moved onto one of the other lists if they did not comply.

Such issues could include failing to share with the United States information about incoming travelers, purportedly inadequate security practices for issuing passports, or the selling of citizenship to people from banned countries, which could serve as a loophole around the restrictions.

That list, the officials said, included Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Chad, the
Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, St. Kitts
and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Vanuatu and Zimbabwe.

During Mr . Trump’s first term, courts blocked the government from enforcing the first two versions of his travel ban, but the Supreme Court eventually permitted a rewritten ban — one that banned citizens from eight nations, six of them predominantly Muslim — to take effect.

The list later evolved according to the NYT.

Possible reasons behind why Bhutan is on the list ?

Bhutan being in the draft ‘Red List,’ will come as a shock to many Bhutanese and the reasons are not clear yet. It is also not clear if Bhutan will be in the final Red List or moved into another colour list.

The Bhutanese looked at possible reasons behind this move by the USA.

This inclusion in the draft ‘Red List’ comes in the backdrop of a major immigration scam in Nepal in 2023 where many Nepalese citizens posing as ‘Bhutanese Refugees,’ went to USA. This immigration scam involved top Nepalese politicians and bureaucrats and also certain senior figures from the camps.

To add to this, last year, there were reports of a number of Bhutanese crossing the border into Canada and five Bhutanese were even detained.

Data from the US Department of Homeland Security shows that 200 Bhutanese have been caught for residing illegally in the USA between 2013 and 2022 a period of 10 years under the category of ‘Expulsions and Noncitizens Apprehensions by Region and Country of Nationality.’

7 illegal immigrants from Bhutan were caught in 2013, 12 in 2014, 24 in 2015, 22 in 2016, 30 in 2017, 26 in 2018, 33 in 2019, 14 in 2020, 15 in 2021 and 17 in 2022.

Apart from this, from 2013 to 2022 a total of 61 Bhutanese were found to not be inadmissible to the USA under the criteria of ‘Noncitizen inadmissibility determinations by region and country of nationality.’

Data from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is a federal law enforcement agency under the US Department of Homeland Security, shows that in the last four years of 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 they have arrested and detained 51 Bhutanese on immigration violations.

US Border Patrol Data from 2007 to 2019 shows 9 Bhutanese being caught at both the Northern Border of Canada and the Southern Border of Mexico while trying to cross over into the USA.

Going further back the first major wave of migration was actually to the USA, and while there were legal migrants, there were also many who did not get there legally but on various pretenses especially as tourists or cultural troupes and then stayed back.

In the WikiLeaks cables on Bhutan three cables from the US Embassies to the USA talk about this issue. A 2010 cable says that a group of so called Bhutanese cultural performers was the front for human smuggling to the US.

The group initially told the US Embassy that their purpose of travel was to perform as members of a Buddhist folk music and dance troupe at several US venues. When interviewed by the Fraud Prevention Unit some members group members admitted that they were actually intending to travel to the US to work illegally and would have to pay USD 3,000 and 4,000 after getting the visa and reaching USA.

In 2008 a group of 9 Bhutanese seeking US Visa was caught when group members admitted to paying USD 10,000 to their fixer to allow them to work and/or immigrate to the US.

The US Embassy in Delhi said that in 2007, 22 visa recipients had overstayed and 33 had not given the correct contact information. This, the embassy assumed was because they had intended to overstay. It was also found that 14 applied to become permanent residents while another 20 applied to prolong their visas.

In 2008, 25 US visa recipients were confirmed to have overstayed.

The cable says that the relatively large number of Bhutanese travelers who remain in the US gives cause for greater scrutiny of their visa applications. It says that the Delhi embassy will take greater care to verify contact information before issuing visas to these applicants.

Update: In a sign of the evolving situation while the NYT saw a draft list in which Bhutan was on the Red List, Reuters came up with a report saying they saw a draft report showing Bhutan is on the yellow list which are countries recommended for a partial suspension if they do not address deficiencies. 

Reuters quoting a U.S. official speaking on the condition of anonymity cautioned there could be changes on the list and that it was yet to be approved by the administration, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Bhutan will know only once the final list is out. It is likely that the NYT and Reuters saw the same draft lists in different stages.

Additional Update: An official source confirmed that Bhutan is now on the draft Yellow List. The reason for coming on the list is due to visa overstaying. Read the full updated report here .