Germany travel warning USA: Popular European country issues new travel advisory for US after citizens detained

The ministry updated its travel advice website for the U.S. on Tuesday (18 March) to clarify that neither approval through the U.S. ESTA system nor a U.S. visa entitles entry in every case. It comes after several Germans were detained at the border recently.

"The final decision on whether a person can enter the U.S. lies with the U.S. border authorities," said the spokesperson on Wednesday. However, the spokesperson emphasised that the change did not constitute a travel warning.

Germany's foreign ministry said earlier this week that it was monitoring whether there had been a change in U.S. immigration policy after three nationals had been detained. Two of the three cases have been resolved, with the affected nationals returning to Germany, while the remaining case was being handled with the help of the consulate general in Boston.

According to Boston-based public broadcaster WGBH, a German man with a green card residency permit was detained by immigration authorities this month at Boston airport and was being held in a detention facility. The German foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for information about the man's current whereabouts.

It comes as Trump is reportedly set to ban people from 43 countries from travelling to the US. A memo shows countries divided into three separate groups - including full visa suspensions and partial suspensions. Many are from the Middle East and Africa, with Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran and North Korea among the 11 who face the most drastic measures.

In the second group, 10 countries would face partial suspensions that would impact tourist and student visas as well as other immigrant visas, with some exceptions. And in a third group, a total of 22 countries would be considered for a partial suspension of US visa issuance if their governments 'do not make efforts to address deficiencies within 60 days', the memo said.

A US official cautioned there could be changes on the list and that it was yet to be approved by the administration. For many in America, the policy will hark back to Trump's explosive 'Muslim ban' during his first term in office. Some of the countries in the new proposal were also on the 2017 list, but many more are new.