The United States is moving to revoke all visas for southern national nationals – DW – 04/06/2025

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that he was taking measures to revoke all visas held by South-Sudanese passport holders and to restrict any other broadcast to prevent entry into the United States.

The reason for this decision is the failure of the South Sudan’s transitional government to accept the return of its citizens repatriated in time, said Rubio on social networks.

“I take measures to revoke all the visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and to restrict any other program to prevent entry into the United States, with immediately, due to the failure of the South Sudan Transitional Government to accept the return of its citizens repatriated in time,” he wrote.

Rubio also said that the United States “would prevent a new issue to prevent entry into the United States by South-Sudanese passport holders.”

However, Washington “will be ready to examine these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,” Rubio added in a statement.

This was the first measure of this type to distinguish all passport holders from a particular country since Donald Trump, who campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, returned to the White House on January 20.

South Sudan at the edge

South Sudan had a brutal civil war after obtaining its independence from its neighbor in the North in 2011.

President Salva Kiir and his opponent Vice-President Riek Machar trained a transitional government in 2020.

But the transitional government – and a peace agreement which has largely ended the fighting – is on the brink of collapse after the forces loyal to Kiir placed MAchar under house arrest last month.

Last week, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged regional and international leaders to prevent South Sudan from falling “above the abysses” in another civil war.

Trump administration revoining TPS designations

South-Sudanese nationals obtained the “temporary protected status” (TPS) by the Biden administration, the designation should expire on May 3, 2025.

TPS protects people from expulsion and is granted to foreign nationals who cannot go home safely due to war, natural disaster or other “extraordinary” conditions.

There were approximately 133 Sudanese in the United States as part of the TPS program, with 140 others eligible to apply, according to data provided by the Ministry of Internal Security in 2023

But the Trump administration began to cancel TPS designations, revoking the protections of more than 600,000 Venezuelans in January.

Published by: ZAC Crellin