The Trump administration announced Wednesday it is punishing four countries for being uncooperative in accepting nationals facing deportation from the U.S.

The Department of Homeland Security and the State Department said they are implementing visa sanctions against Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea and Sierra Leone because their governments "have denied or unreasonably delayed accepting their nationals ordered removed from the United States."

The penalties largely affect government officials who now will be barred from obtaining visas to visit the U.S. for business or pleasure.

However, the measures are broader for Eritrean nationals: The U.S. embassy in Asmara, the nation's capital, has stopped issuing visas to all citizens seeking to temporarily visit the country for either business or pleasure.

DHS said in August that it had asked the State Department to issue sanctions against four nations, but did not disclose at the time which countries those were.

The nations hit with sanctions Wednesday, with the exception of Sierra Leone, were among a group of so-called recalcitrant countries identified by DHS as not cooperating on the acceptance of nationals that the U.S. is seeking to deport. Along with the territory of Hong Kong, the remainder of the 12-member list consists of Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Laos, Morocco, South Sudan, Vietnam and, most notably, China.

"International law obligates each country to accept the return of its nationals ordered removed from the United States," acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke said in a statement. "Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone have failed in that responsibility. The United States itself routinely cooperates with foreign governments in documenting and accepting its citizens when asked, as do the majority of countries in the world. However, these countries have failed to do so, and that one-way street ends with these sanctions."

Immigration authorities have been forced to release at least 2,900 people who have been ordered removed from the U.S. because their home nations have not issued travel documentation needed for their return.