Washington, USA:
Washington has revoked all visas for South Sudan passport holders and blocked new arrivals, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that African countries have not accepted citizens exiled from the United States.
The State Department “acts to cancel all visas held by South Sudan passport holders, preventing further issuance to prevent entry,” Rubio said in a statement.
It was the first measure to single all passport holders in a particular country since Donald Trump returned to the White House on January 20th to campaign on an anti-immigration platform.
Rubio called the transitional government “using the US” in Juba, saying “every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when other countries try to remove it.”
Washington is “ready to review these actions when South Sudan is fully cooperating,” Rubio added.
South Sudan, one of the world's latest and poorest countries, is currently prey to tensions between political leaders.
Some observers fear a renewal of the civil war that killed 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018.
South Sudanese citizens will be granted “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) under the control of Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, and their designation is due to expire on May 3, 2025.
The United States is granting TPS to protect people from deportation to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home due to war, natural disasters or other “extraordinary” conditions.
Under the TPS program, there are around 133 South Sudanese people in the United States, with an additional 140 eligible to apply, the Department of Homeland Security said in September 2023.
However, the Trump White House began overturning the designation of the TPS, revoking protections from more than 600,000 Venezuelans in January.
This week, a federal judge put the decision on hold after questioning the government's claim that the majority of US Venezuelans are criminals.
According to the Pew Research Center, as of March 2024, there were 1.2 million people in the US eligible for TPS or receiving TPs, making up the largest group of Venezuelans.
The Trump administration's singles from South Sudan also came after an increase in the number of Africans attempting to enter the United States through the southern border, an alternative to a dangerous route to Europe.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by Syndicate Feed.)
