<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised Wednesday to redouble efforts to issue visas ahead of the World Cup, warning of a backlog so long that Colombians may have already needed to apply.<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up scrutiny on visas as it puts a priority on restricting immigration and deporting migrants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rubio told lawmakers the State Department was considering reassigning diplomats to visa services and to start 24-hour visa operations ahead of next year’s World Cup, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada, and then the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.<\/p>\n
“We are looking for ways to do double shifts in some of our embassies around the world because of the visa requirements,” Rubio told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n
“For example, if you haven’t applied for a visa from Colombia already, you probably won’t get here in time for the World Cup unless we go to double shifts,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said that embassies would also look to use artificial intelligence on some cases, such as renewal of visas.<\/p>\n
“We want it to be a success. It’s a priority for the president,” Rubio said of tourism for the sporting events.<\/p>\n
He was responding to a question from Representative Dina Titus, who voiced alarm at a drop in tourism to her district which includes Las Vegas since the start of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
Tourist numbers to the United States have been hit by accounts of rigorous questioning at border entrances since Trump returned to the White House.<\/p>\n
A major fall has come from Canadians — who do not need visas for the United States — after Trump repeatedly disparaged the northern neighbor and questioned the country’s sovereignty.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio promised Wednesday to redouble efforts to issue visas ahead of the World Cup, warning of a backlog so long that Colombians may have already needed to apply. President Donald Trump’s administration has ramped up scrutiny on visas as it puts a priority on restricting immigration and deporting migrants. Rubio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6787,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6785\/revisions\/6787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunnewsusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}