“If you have a currently valid U.S. visa in your Israeli passport and were born in Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen, and do not have a valid passport from one of these countries, your visa was not cancelled and remains valid,” according to a statement issued Tuesday by the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The clarification was published in order to reassure some 145,000 Israelis who were born in Arab nations – some of who were concerned they might not be able to visit their families in the United States due to the temporary ban implemented by the American government last week.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order launching a 90-day suspension on visas and refugees from the seven aforementioned Muslim-majority nations, as a means of “extreme vetting” – until the country can come up with a better way to screen for terror risks. Refugees from Syria face a 120-day wait.
There has been a global and local response of mass hysteria in response to the restriction, which is the first to be enacted in about half a century.