Thanks to Hussein Sadruddin of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights for the following DOS update.


State Department To Introduce New Security Hold For Certain Arab and Muslim Men

The State Department has announced that all men between ages 16 and 45 from certain Arab and Muslim countries will be subject to a waiting period on non-immigrant visa applications that will add an additional period of up to 20 days to the application process.
The move, confirmed by Secretary of State Colin Powell in an interview on the Fox News Channel, is intended to allow the State Department to cross check applicants names with the FBI's terrorism databases. Secretary Powell said he hoped the measures would be temporary.

Applicants subject to the new security screening will also be required to complete a new background questionnaire form that will cover previous military service and weapons training, previous travels and whether the applicant has previously had any other passports.

The State Department has expanded the number of countries subject to the new visa restrictions beyond the countries included on the list of countries that sponsor or support terrorist activities. The new list of countries reportedly includes the following:

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Oman,Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.