Green card holders included in Trump ban: Homeland Security

People holding so-called green cards, making them legal permanent US residents, are included in President Donald Trump's executive action temporarily barring people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States, a Department of Homeland security spokeswoman has said.

"It will bar green card holders," Gillian Christensen, acting Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in an email on Saturday.

The order limiting entry on visitors from Syria and six other Muslim-majority countries is for 90 days. The six other countries are: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, the White House said.

"I'm establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the United States of America. Don't want them here," Trump said earlier on Friday at the Pentagon.

"We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country and love deeply our people," he said.

Civil rights groups condemned the measures as discriminatory, and said they would strand refugees in dangerous places and would tarnish the reputation of the United States as a land welcoming of immigrants.