South Sudan has criticised the revoking of US visas for all its nationals after it says the Trump administration mistakenly deported a man to the world\u2019s newest country who was actually Congolese.<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the visa measure on Saturday. He said it was a response to South Sudan\u2019s refusal to accept the return of its citizens being removed from the US.<\/p>\n
But South Sudan\u2019s foreign ministry said the move was based on a case involving someone who had been incorrectly identified as South Sudanese.<\/p>\n
It added that the individual was \u201creturned to the sending country for further processing\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is the first time the US is targeting all passport holders from a particular country since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, having campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, with the promise of \u201cmass deportations\u201d.<\/p>\n
In his statement, Rubio said that the US would also block any arriving citizens of South Sudan, the world\u2019s newest country, at US ports of entry.<\/p>\n
He blamed \u201cthe failure of South Sudan\u2019s transitional government to accept the return of its repatriated citizens in a timely manner\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
But in a statement on Monday, South Sudan\u2019s foreign ministry said it \u201cdeeply regrets\u201d the blanket measure against all of the country\u2019s citizens based on \u201can isolated incident involving misrepresentation by an individual who is not a South Sudanese national\u201d.<\/p>\n
It said the man at the centre of the visa row was a Congolese national and he was returned to the US. It added that all supporting evidence was shared with American officials.<\/p>\n
But Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau dismissed South Sudan\u2019s explanation as \u201clegally irrelevant\u201d, saying the African country\u2019s embassy in Washington \u201ccertified this particular individual as one of their nationals\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable and irresponsible for South Sudanese government officials to second guess the determination of their own embassy,\u201d Landau added.<\/p>\n
South Sudan\u2019s Information Minister Michael Makuei Lueth told the AP news agency that the US was \u201cattempting to find faults with the tense situation\u201d in the country because no sovereign nation would accept foreign deportees.<\/p>\n
It comes as fears grow that South Sudan may again descend into civil war after the country\u2019s First Vice-President Riek Machar had been placed under house arrest.<\/p>\n
South Sudan\u2019s President Salva Kiir accused Machar of stirring up a new revolt.<\/p>\n
Last month, the US ordered all its non-emergency staff in South Sudan to leave as fighting broke out in one part of the country, threatening a fragile peace deal agreed in 2018 that ended a five-year civil war.<\/p>\n
South Sudanese in the US were previously granted Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which allowed them to remain in the US for a set period of time.<\/p>\n
TPS for South Sudanese in the US had been due to expire by 3 May.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Sudan has criticised the revoking of US visas for all its nationals after it says the Trump administration mistakenly deported a man to the world\u2019s newest country who was actually Congolese. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the visa measure on Saturday. He said it was a response to South Sudan\u2019s refusal to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}