No deadline for completing US visas review process: State Dept

WASHINGTON: The United States (US) State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce on Saturday clarified that there is no deadline today for completing the review process of US visas.

Speaking at a press conference, Tammy Bruce stated that there is no deadline today for imposing travel restrictions. She added that details regarding travel restrictions would be revealed after the investigations. The US has ensured that the foreign travelers entering the country do not pose a threat to national security and public safety.

Earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will revoke the temporary legal status of 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in the United States, according to a Federal Register notice on Friday, the latest expansion of his crackdown on immigration.

The move, effective April 24, cuts short a two-year “parole” granted to the migrants under former President Joe Biden that allowed them to enter the country by air if they had U.S. sponsors.

Trump, took steps to ramp up immigration enforcement after taking office, including a push to deport record numbers of migrants in the U.S. illegally.

He has argued that the legal entry parole programs launched under his Democratic predecessor overstepped the boundaries of federal law and called for their termination in a January 20 executive order.

In another development, legal advocacy groups sounded alarms after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened new actions against lawyers and law firms that bring immigration lawsuits and other cases against the government that he deems unethical.

In a memorandum to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi late on Friday, Trump said lawyers were helping to fuel “rampant fraud and meritless claims” in the immigration system, and directed the Justice Department to seek sanctions against attorneys for professional misconduct. The order also took aim at law firms that sue the administration in what Trump, a Republican, called “baseless partisan” lawsuits.

He asked Bondi to refer such firms to the White House to be stripped of security clearances, and for federal contracts they worked on to be terminated.

Meanwhile, as U.S. President Donald Trump pledges to deport “millions and millions” of “criminal aliens,” thousands of federal law enforcement officials from multiple agencies are being enlisted to take on new work as immigration enforcers, pulling crime-fighting resources away on other areas -- from drug trafficking and terrorism to sexual abuse and fraud.