US President Donald Trump. Image: The White House.
United States President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order to block incoming travellers from a list of Muslim-majority nations has stirred not only international outrage, but has led to unprecedented pandemonium at US airports and confusion among Australians who aren’t clear on the details.
While the world is wagging its finger at President Trump for using his pen to sign executive orders that have resulted in people being detained for hours at US airports, leading to a federal judge intervening to release those held against their will, the US Department of Homeland Security has announced that it will continue to enforce the travel ban.
Naturally, this has provoked questions regarding how those with dual-citizenship will be able to travel, or whether they’ll be allowed to travel to the US without being turned the other way.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced in a press conference today that there were as yet no known cases of dual-nationals in Australia being prevented from travelling to the United States or otherwise having difficulty that needed consular assistance from the Australian government.
But the executive order from President Trump has provoked much speculation and confusion over the visa process for Australians. There have been contradictory reports regarding the changes to this process.
It was widely reported initially that the executive order on immigration and refugees stated that Australians planning on visiting the US could be forced to undertake an in-person interview with American officials.
If this were the case, Australians planning to travel to the US would have needed to visit the US Embassy in Canberra or the Consulate General offices in their respective cities.
But later on, the story was updated to reflect new facts pouring in that Australian travellers to the US would largely not be impacted, and will still have the simple option of applying for entry to the US online if their travel is for business and pleasure and less than 90 days.
Once that was reported, many Australians collectively sighed in relief, especially if they needed to travel to and from the US for emergency reasons related to family or for general work-related activities.
Obviously this would mean that Australian public sector personnel working in local, state and federal government would be subject to the same rules when travelling to the US, as many do for business reasons such as study tours and meeting with sister cities.
GovNews has contacted the United States Embassy in Canberra for further clarification. We will update you once we’ve received a response.
