The United States revokes all visas for South Sudanese nationals

Kinshasa, April 6^th, 2025 (CPA) – The United States have announced in a press release the revocation of all visas granted to nationals of South Sudan, accusing the African country of failing to take back its citizens targeted by a US expulsion order, have reported on Sunday the international media. « With immediate effect, the United States Department of State is revoking all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders. It is time for the Transitional Government of South Sudan to stop taking advantage of our country, » has declared Marco Rubio, Secretary of State. This is the first measure of its kind taken against all the citizens of any country in the world since Donald Trump returns to power on January 20^th with a radical anti-immigration policy. « ‘Applying our country’s immigration laws is critically important to the national security and public safety of the United States. Every country must agree to promptly take back its citizens when another country, including the United States, wants to deport them », he has added. The statement has said that in addition to revoking existing visas, Washington will stop issuing new visas to South Sudanese nationals. « We stand ready to review this policy when South Sudan is fully cooperative, » Mr Rubio has assured. Since Sudan’s independence in 2011, the country has been plagued by violence that has prevented it from recovering from the bloody civil war that left almost 400,000 people dead and 4 million displaced between 2013 and 2018, when a peace agreement has been signed. During his previous term in office, Trump had signed in 2017 a decree banning nationals of several predominantly Muslim countries from entering US soil. Libya, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Somalia had been targeted, but South Sudan had escaped this measure at that time.