Pakistan, US discuss consular issues amid visa, immigration uncertainty

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and the United States discussed consular issues between the two countries on Wednesday. This comes at a time when the Trump administration has made sweeping changes in immigration-related executive orders and cracked down on illegal immigrants, leading to domestic and international tourism including visa references.

According to the Foreign Office, “Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar today chaired a meeting to discuss ongoing collaboration between Pakistan and the US on consular issues. US Charge d’Affaires Mrs Natalie A Baker, federal secretaries of foreign affairs and interior and other senior officials attended the meeting”.

No further details were made public regarding what is seen as an important meeting at the Foreign Office related to consular issues. This is the second meeting by the two sides in a week; an earlier meeting had been held at the Foreign Office on March 11 during which bilateral relations and other matters of mutual interest were discussed.

Per the Office Office, the talks last week had focused on upscaling and strengthening economic and trade ties, and exploring opportunities to enhance collaboration in counterterrorism and security domains.

At the time, the Foreign Office had not commented on whether the issue of Pakistan’s ambassador to Turkmenistan being denied entry into the US due to “controversial visa references” had been taken up.

The Trump administration has also deported several illegal Pakistanis in US planes; the Foreign Office has called deportations of Pakistanis from different countries an ongoing process.

The News was told by knowledgeable sources that the focus of Wednesday’s meeting was the issue of granting US visas to Pakistanis -- and the presence of the interior secretary also pointed in that direction. This issue has copped up in the aftermath of reports speaking of the Trump administration making sweeping changes as far as visas go.

Another official commented, “It was a routine consultation where consular issues like passports and visas were also discussed”.

On Tuesday night, the US State Department had squashed reports that the Trump administration was likely to put travel restrictions on foreigners or that there was any travel ban list.

The Foreign Office and Pakistan’s embassy in Washington had said that officially the US had not shared any travel ban list, in response to reports that had shown Pakistan included in a group of countries which would be subjected to varying degrees of travel. According to these reports, Pakistan was included in the group that would be considered for a partial suspension of visa issuance if their governments “do not make efforts to address deficiencies within 60 days”.