Visa Revocations Disregard South Sudan War Risks, Overlook U.S. Communities’ Embrace of Refugees
Streaming Media
Abstract
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Saturday that the State Department was acting to “revoke all visas held by South Sudanese passport holders and prevent further issuance to prevent entry into the United States by South Sudanese passport holders.” The rationale for this sweeping announcement is that the Transitional Government of South Sudan is not accepting the repatriation of its citizens from the United States “in a timely manner.”
For South Sudan and its citizens, the timing could hardly be worse. The country is on the brink of a renewed civil war, with little capacity to absorb returning citizens, who may well be at risk upon return. Moreover, given recent reporting about U.S. citizens being mistakenly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there is a non-trivial risk of South Sudanese with dual nationality, permanent residence, or asylum status being inadvertently swept up in the enforcement actions that will flow from this announcement.
The Trump administration may be in for more of a backlash than it expects. The breadth and depth of support for South Sudanese across red and blue states – and especially the longstanding commitment of the U.S. evangelical community to the people of South Sudan during their battle for independence from the Islamist Sudanese government – could generate enough pressure to force Rubio to withdraw, or at the very least, narrow the scope of the April 5 announcement.
External Links
https://www.justsecurity.org/110089/south-sudan-visa-revocations/
Source Publication
JUST SECURITY
Repository Citation
Rebecca Hamilton,
Visa Revocations Disregard South Sudan War Risks, Overlook U.S. Communities’ Embrace of Refugees,
JUST SECURITY
(2025).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/pub_disc_media/636