Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on April 5 that the Trump administration will be revoking all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders in retaliation for what the administration says is the refusal of South Sudan’s transitional government to accept its citizens whom the United States has elected to deport.
According to USA Today, Rubio explained the move, which represents the first time the administration has targeted passport holders of an individual country, in a statement he released on social media.
“It is time for the Transitional Government of South Sudan to stop taking advantage of the United States,” Rubio said in a statement. “Every country must accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner when another country, including the United States, seeks to remove them. We will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation.”
Although South Sudan could potentially be headed for a return to civil war, the Trump administration seems more concerned with making the country’s transitional government bend the knee in deference than to assist the country during uncertain times.
According to Al-Jazeera, the move is a departure from the actions of the Biden Administration, which had granted South Sudan nationals Temporary Protected Status, designed to protect foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war, natural disasters or other conditions from being deported. That designation was not set to expire until May 3.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres previously warned that both regional and international leaders need to act in such a way as to help prevent South Sudan from falling “over the abyss” into a return to the civil war that killed more than 400,000 people between 2013 and 2018.
According to The New York Times, Lucas Guttentag, a former Justice Department official in the Biden administration, the move from the Trump administration represents “another example of damning individuals based on nationality and upending the lives of innocent and law-abiding visa holders instead of engaging in meaningful diplomacy.”
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