By MATTHEW LEE and SAM MEDNICK
Contributing Writers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department plans to drastically slash the number of U.S. embassies and consulates in Africa that can process visas for foreigners seeking to come to the United States.
The almost 50 U.S. embassies and consulates that are processing visa applications will be reduced to 20 in the coming weeks, according to three U.S. officials and an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press. No date is set for the change, but it is expected in June, according to the officials, who were not authorized to comment to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The move is part of President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on issuing visas as part of his broader aim to limit immigration to the U.S. and clamp down on those who travel on temporary visas but then overstay them. His administration also has scaled back personnel at embassies and consulates around the world.
During Trump’s first term in 2018, he lamented about America’s lax immigration system and questioned why the U.S. was always bringing in “all these people from “s…-hole countries” by offering protections to immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. Trump initially denied using the term, but last year acknowledged it:
“I met with senators and asked them, I said, ‘Why is it we only take people from s…-hole countries?’ Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden, Denmark … but we always take people from Somalia — places that are filthy, dirty, disgusting,” Trump admitted in December.
On a conference call May 29, meanwhile, U.S. diplomats, including consular chiefs, were told the U.S. would be scaling back its visa services across Africa, according to one of the officials who was on the call.
Under a directive approved by Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, the State Department will reduce consular operations in all but 20 “hubs” in Africa, according to the officials and the memo.
Visa processing in Africa has already been affected by a travel ban on certain countries as well as a requirement for applicants to post up to $15,000 bond in order to apply and more recently by restrictions caused by the Ebola outbreak.
The new rules mean that a citizen of a non-hub country will have to travel to one of the 20 approved sites, which could pose formidable travel challenges and costs.
Consular sections in non-hub countries will stay open but be limited in the services they can offer. They will still be able to assist American citizens with passport renewals and emergency consular requests as well as special national interest cases and diplomatic visa applications.
The State Department did not address the specific issues in the memo but said it “is constantly evaluating its overseas operations in order to deploy taxpayer resources in a way that advances America’s priorities as efficiently and effectively as possible.”
It said this “includes a visa process that maintains rigorous standards of security screening and vetting and aligns resources and operational capacity with America’s national interests.”
According to the memo, the 20 hubs to remain open for all processing are: Abidjan, Ivory Coast; Accra, Ghana; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Cape Town, South Africa; Dakar, Senegal; Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania; Djibouti, Djibouti; Johannesburg, South Africa; Kampala, Uganda; Kigali, Rwanda; Kinshasa, Congo; Lagos, Nigeria; Lome, Togo; Luanda, Angola; Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Monrovia, Liberia; Nairobi, Kenya; Port Louis, Mauritius; Praia, Cape Verde; and Yaounde, Cameroon.
Matthew Lee and Sam Mednick write for the Associated Press. Wave staff also contributed to this report.
