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United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, on Tuesday expressed hope that President Donald Trump’s administration may be able to lift visa restrictions placed on Nigeria last week.

According to reports, Mike Pompeo said this during a meeting with Nigeria's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, Pompeo said that the restrictions were imposed on Nigeria and five other countries because the United States Government wanted them to do more to ascertain the information on travellers. “I’m optimistic that’s going to happen,” Pompeo told reporters. Eritrea, Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan are the other countries affected by this new policy expected to take effect from February 21. Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, had last week been quoted as saying that the new immigration restrictions were designed to “address security concerns in the way the banned countries track their own citizens, share information with the U.S. and cooperate on immigration matters”. However, the new restriction would apply only to new visa applications as immigrants issued valid visas before that date will still be able to move to the US.