President Donald Trump suspended visas from 21 countries and partially suspended visas from another 19 countries.
Why?
Because as per Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “Visas are not a right. There is no constitutional right to a visa. A visa is permission to enter our country as a visitor.”
The Secretary further clarified that the policy applies broadly to all categories of temporary visitors, including students, tourists, and journalists. If individuals undertake activities deemed contrary to U.S. national interests after entering the country, their visas could be revoked.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) report on the visas issued by the Biden-Harris duo in fiscal 2024 for 180 countries illustrates the reasons why the visas for those 21 countries were suspended and another 18 countries partially suspended.
Visas Suspended
CIS used Transparency International ranking of the transparency of governments of each of 180 countries to assign 1 to the least transparent country and 180 to the most transparent, with 90 being average.
The 21 countries averaged an extremely poor transparency of 18.5, which is an indication that the applicants for visas cannot be properly vetted because of the lack of data with which to vet them.
The three least transparent countries were South Sudan with a ranking of 8, Somalia 9, and Iran 23.
Corruption in the 180 countries was also ranked with a ranking of 180 being the most corrupt country and 1 being the least corrupt with the average corruption ranking for the 180 countries being 90.
Somalia, based on the involvement of Somalians in Minnesota and Iran, based on its anti-American activities, are used herein to illustrate the issues.
The average corruption ranking for the 21 countries of 165 indicates their governments are a very corrupt group. Somalia with a ranking of 179 received 1,650 visas and Iran with a ranking 151 received 6,261 visas.
The CIS Ronald Mortensen wrote that vetting for nationals in such corrupt countries is nearly impossible for U.S. officials, “due to a combination of incompetence, poor or no record keeping, fraud, bribery, and personal dishonesty.”
Mortensen continued that for the payment of a bribe, a citizen of these countries, and in some cases even a non-citizen, can obtain the official documents necessary to apply for entry into the United States — a fake birth certificate, doctored law enforcement records, a phony diploma, a forged passport, fictitious bank statements, and all other documents normally used by U.S. officials to vet individuals before they are allowed to enter the United States.
Categories of Visas
The CIS report listed the various categories for which visas were issued.
Under the category of “Immediate Relatives” 1,825 entered from the 21 countries with 1,024 from Somalia and 2,711 from Iran.
Under the category of “Family Preference” 9,024 entered from the 21 countries with 110 from Somalia and 1,330 from Iran. Interesting that almost 5 times the number entered under Family Preference than did under Immediate Relative from countries whose records are at best “suspect.”
Family Preference visas allow citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs) to sponsor specific relatives for green cards, subject to annual limits and potential multi-year waiting periods. Categories include F1 (unmarried adult children of citizens), F2A/F2B (spouses/children of LPRs), F3 (married children of citizens), and F4 (siblings of citizens).
Under the category of “Employment Preferences” only 623 out of 67,651 people expressed any preference and no one from Somalia expressed any, which is confirmed with the data that after being in the U.S. for ten years, 78% of Somalians in Minnesota remain on welfare. Iran had 380 express employment preferences.
Under “Diversity Immigrants,” an interesting category that appears to catch all those who have no immediate relatives, family preferences or employment preferences, there were 7,746 with Somalia having 501 and Iran 1,306.
The theory for Diversity Immigrants is that applicants must be natives of eligible countries (generally those with low, underrepresented immigration rates to the U.S. They must also meet simple educational (high school diploma or equivalent) or work experience requirements (two years in a qualified occupation).
However, when there is no vetting from nontransparent, corrupt countries, the possession of any educational or work experiences are purely fictional.
Mortensen writes that Trump “was left with no option other than to suspend entry from highly corrupt countries in order to prevent the further importation of cultures of corruption, since effective vetting is not possible.”
Visas Partially Suspended
President Trump partially suspended visas for 18 countries whose Transparencies rankings were a poor 30 as was their 120 ranking for corruption. In 2024 these countries had received 45,842 visas, of which 29,872 were allegedly for “Immediate Relatives.”
Conclusion
The large amount of data was listed herein to illustrate the huge amount of data in the CIS and the reasons why President Trump suspended visas from some countries and partially from other countries.
The numbers that entered through visas were a small minority of those who while still unvetted entered through other methods.
President Trump suspended the Biden-Harris policies of issuing visas to countries where vetting is impossible, and partially suspended visas to other countries where vetting is suspect.
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