The United States plans to slash the number of embassies and consulates in Africa that process visa applications from nearly 50 to 20, according to an internal State Department memo and three U.S. officials cited by the Associated Press. The change, approved last week under a directive signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is expected to take effect in June.
Under the new arrangement, full consular visa operations will be maintained only at 20 designated regional hubs across the continent. The hubs include Abidjan, Accra, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Djibouti, Johannesburg, Kampala, Kigali, Kinshasa, Lagos, Lomé, Luanda, Malabo, Monrovia, Nairobi, Port Louis, Praia, and Yaoundé. Applicants from countries that do not host one of the designated hubs will be required to travel to another country to submit applications and attend interviews, a move officials say could increase travel costs and logistical challenges.
Consular sections in non-hub countries will remain open but with limited services. They will continue assisting American citizens with passport renewals and emergency requests, and handle diplomatic visas and special national interest cases, while standard visa processing will stop. The State Department 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,” including maintaining rigorous security screening and vetting.
The reduction forms part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to tighten immigrant and non-immigrant visa issuance and clamp down on visitors who overstay temporary visas. It follows recent restrictions on African visa applicants, including travel bans on certain countries and new financial bond requirements of up to $15,000 for some applicants.
