Mandatory interviews and security barriers now coexist with fast-track plans. Guidelines leaked by The Associated Press reveal how the Trump administration is trying to balance its immigration policy with the arrival of millions of tourists.
When the spotlight and money are at stake, it’s time to make a move. Washington’s diplomatic outposts scattered across the five continents have been handed a blunt instruction: fast-track visa applications for foreign nationals planning to travel to the United States for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games, and a raft of other marquee sporting occasions. The directive, outlined in a batch of cables obtained by AP over the weekend, seeks to propel these petitions to the top of consular waiting lists, right alongside those from investors contemplating ‘significant investments’ in the land of stars and stripes.
Yet it arrives at a fraught juncture, one tinged with friction, as images of reinforced police checkpoints in emblematic cities, Chicago, Washington, and, inevitably, Los Angeles, future Olympic host, ricochet across social networks, sketching an urban tableau that diverges from the polished vision touted by Games organisers.
President Donald Trump publicly endorsed, at the close of September, the idea that fans from every corner of the globe should be able to fly in to witness these spectacles. “It’s going to be very exciting. I hope everyone comes. I hope countless people from all over the world take part,” he declared. The message was widely read as an ironic counterpoint to an immigration doctrine that, throughout his terms in office, has intensified raids, deportations and border scrutiny, actions the White House frames as indispensable “to protect Americans from foreign terrorists and other threats.”
The tension surfaced conspicuously even during the recent FIFA Club World Cup, held on U.S. soil, where part of the media’s gaze drifted towards the restrictions that hampered entry for some visitors. Newspapers were fixated on the affair during the LA Dodgers case in June. One of Major League Baseball’s most storied franchises, which, parallel to the football jamboree, faced mounting criticism for its silence while a surge of immigration raids swept across the Californian city. The club, rooted on the West Coast since 1958 after its relocation from Brooklyn, allocated $1,000,000 (€867,000) in June to families in need, a conciliatory gesture aimed at rebuilding bridges with its sizeable Hispanic fanbase.
At that time, and in the months that followed, dissenting voices against Trump’s policies found clear champions. Among them stood Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who continued to brand several of these directives as ‘discriminatory’, warning of the strain they could place on social cohesion and on the economic fabric of a city poised to host the Olympic Games. Indeed, the chief has maintained a taut standoff with Democrat-run municipalities, at times wielding the organisation of major sporting events as leverage in federal budget battles, even hinting that some cities might be deemed unsafe to stage matches of next summer’s FIFA World Cup.
On a wider scale, the discord has found its way into the sporting domain. The New Yorker president has repeatedly taken aim at transgender athletes competing in women’s events and, more recently, unveiled in August a revised visa policy that could bar entry to those seeking to participate in international tournaments on US soil. This comes on top of the introduction of new criteria for applicants to the specialised H-1B work visa, with a notably stringent lens on individuals who, according to the administration, may have “been responsible for or complicit in censoring Americans” across digital environments or global content-moderation platforms.
The cables cited by the news agency, dispatched by the State Department in recent weeks, establish a hierarchy of applications designed to safeguard the vast influx of visitors expected for these major events. The administration aims to prevent soaring demand from hindering fans’ arrival in the United States, particularly at a time when mandatory in-person interviews, required for most visas, including B1 and B2 categories, have overwhelmed the capacity of many embassies despite an expansion of consular staff. Delays, which in some instances stretch over several months, have prompted the creation of targeted programmes.
The aforementioned ‘FIFA Pass’ initiative, disclosed by Trump last month, allows foreign travellers heading to the World Cup to secure visa interviews with greater speed. The president, first recipient of the ‘FIFA Peace Prize: Football Unites the World’, attended the World Cup group-stage draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, over the weekend, nevertheless urged applicants to begin the process ‘immediately’ to avoid bottlenecks. Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that more than 400 additional consular officers have been deployed worldwide to handle tournament-related demand, and that nearly 80% of travellers can now obtain an appointment within 60 days, according to the leaked documents.
The latest instructions push the envelope further still. Consulates “should ensure sufficient appointment capacity to serve spectators and other fans travelling to attend World Cup-related events,” stresses one of the reports. These applications are to be prioritised over most B1/B2 cases, save for those strictly tied to U.S. reindustrialisation efforts. Preference is likewise extended to diplomats, officials on state business, seasonal farmworkers, religious personnel, doctors, nurses and students enrolled at institutions where foreign pupils make up less than 15% of the cohort.
Now that the World Cup draw has concluded and the roadmap to Los Angeles 2028 is accelerating, US officials may seek a careful equilibrium between competing imperatives: on the one hand, the imposition of tight controls on foreign entrants; on the other, the need to guarantee the global presence demanded by the staging of sporting competitions of planetary scale. .-Insidethegames
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