New Zealanders holding dual nationality with countries restricted to travel into the United States under a recent Muslim ban will not be held up at the border.

But Foreign Minister Murray McCully has admonished his ministry over the delay in confirming the details, calling the performance of his officials "inadequate".

McCully confirmed he called in Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) chief executive Brook Barrington for a "very frank" discussion in his office.

REUTERS New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully slammed MFAT over the delay in confirming details of Donald Trump's policy.

"It's not an easy environment in which to manage change, I wanted to convey the chief executive the importance of being able to manage that complex situation in a more efficient and a more professional manner than we've managed to achieve in the last few days," he said.

The transition the US was going through, was on a scale that New Zealand would never see.

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"So of course that's going to make life more complex, but that's not something that's going to change tomorrow. It's going to be the case for a while, and the ministry needs to get good at managing that.

"It means you have to get out of bed a bit earlier in the morning, and work a bit harder during the day," McCully said.

He would not be drawn on whether other countries had announced their exemptions, before being briefed on the full details of the policy.

HAGEN HOPKINS/GETTY IMAGES Prime Minister Bill English has been criticised for his response to President Trump's travel ban order.

"But as far as the New Zealand process was concerned, I'm satisfied that there was no special deal that we were missing out on, and as you'll see, the policy positions now announced by the US make that clear.

"But that doesn't change the fact that our system did not grip up this challenge in the way that I would have expected, and did not have the information and interpretation of that information available for the Prime Minister and others, in the fashion I would have liked."

The extraordinary public lashing comes more than a day after foreign ministry officials scrambled to work out New Zealand's status under President Donald Trump's sweeping executive order, while other countries announced their own exemptions.

While protests and outrage have swept across the world, closer to home, Prime Minister Bill English has come under intense scrutiny for not knowing where potentially affected New Zealanders stood under the ban.

The US Embassy in Wellington confirmed Wednesday the exemption - previously reported as having been extended to other so-called "Five Eyes" countries - also applied to New Zealand. Together, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Britain and the US make up the Five Eyes security network - the world's largest joint intelligence gathering operation.



The exemption does not apply to any dual New Zealand citizen who had visited one of the blacklisted countries in the last five years.



A spokeswoman for the US Embassy in New Zealand confirmed the ban did not apply to dual nationals who held a New Zealand passport, however those also from Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Iran still required a US visa. This was the case before the executive order.



Dual nationals of Yemen, Libya, and Somalia and a Visa Waiver Programme country - such as New Zealand - may travel under the waiver programme unless they had travelled to any of the seven countries on or after March 2011.



Any travel to those seven countries in the past five years would mean those New Zealand citizens would also have to apply for a US visa.



The embassy was working closely with the Department of Homeland Security to implement Trump's executive order, the spokeswoman said.



"Our embassies and consulates around the world will process visa applications and issue non-immigrant and immigrant visas to otherwise eligible visa applicants who apply with a passport from an unrestricted country, even if they hold dual nationality from one of the seven restricted countries.



"We will announce any changes affecting travellers to the United States as soon as that information is available."

Earlier, English had expressed his own frustration at officials but said they were working under difficult circumstances.

"I don't think this policy has been rolled out in a way that suited anybody much. So I would hope that if there are gong to be other significant changes in their policy they would implement it in ways that people understand it.

"English was expected to speak to Trump by phone over coming days.

Asked if he would raise the Muslim ban, English said he was "quite happy to represent the view" that New Zealand disagreed with the policy. He did not expect that to ruffle US feathers.



"There's a long history of disagreement of New Zealanders with US policy, going right back to the Vietnam war in the 1950s. That doesn't change the need as a small country for a positive relationship with the US. We can do that at the same time as disagree with the US."

"There's a long history of disagreement of New Zealanders with US policy, going right back to the Vietnam war in the 1950s. That doesn't change the need as a small country for a positive relationship with the US. We can do that at the same time as disagree with the US."