<p>The Department of Homeland Security has asked the State Department to punish four countries that are consistently unwilling to accept nationals that have been deported from the United States.</p>
<p>This request follows multiple cases in which authorities have been forced to release illegal immigrants (inside the US) because their home countries have blocked their return. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may have individuals from foreign countries that have committed crimes in the United States and been convicted &ndash; in some cases have served sentences &ndash; and when they&rsquo;re released from prison they remain in the United States because their countries won&rsquo;t take them back,&rdquo; explains DHS spokesman David Lapan.</p>
<p>According to the <em>Immigration and Nationality Act</em>, the State Department must stop granting travel visas in &ldquo;recalcitrant&rdquo; countries when it is asked to do so by the Homeland Security Secretary. ;</p>
<p>The request to impose sanctions on the four countries comes in the form of a letter written by acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke. ;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The Secretary is having conversations with those countries. We want to bring those countries into compliance. We want those countries to be able to take back their citizens,&rdquo; said one State Department official. &ldquo;We are having different levels of conversations with those countries and imposing different things upon them based on what we think will work best with those countries. ;</p>
<p>Government officials have refused to name the four countries, but they are supposedly among this list of &rdquo;recalcitrant&rdquo; countries: China, Cambodia, Burma, Eritrea, Cuba, Hong Kong, Guinea, Laos, Iran, South Sudan, Morocco, and Vietnam. ;</p>
<p>It is unclear exactly who would be affected by a travel suspension. According to a State Department official, it could affect &ldquo;any category of visa applicant, as determined by the Department on a country-by-country basis.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The underlying goal here is to convince countries to work with us. &ldquo;Countries can take steps to be removed from the list,&rdquo; says Lapan. &ldquo;Our goal is to get countries to agree to accept the return of their nationals. ;</p>
<p>President Trump has made it a point to make deporting illegal immigrants a priority. On the campaign trail, he criticized countries that refused to take their own people back after they&rsquo;ve been ordered to leave the US. &ldquo;Not going to happen with me,&#8221; he said last August. &#8220;Not going to happen with me.&#8221;</p>