U.S. Embassy suspends visa services in Burkina Faso as it rejects American deportees

The U.S. Embassy Ouagadougou has temporarily paused all routine visa services effective October 10, 2025 according to an announcement on its website.

The statement says "this pause includes immigrant visas and nonimmigrant visas for tourists, business travelers, students, exchange visitors, and most other nonimmigrant categories.

Impacted visa applicants have been notified of their appointment cancellations. We will update our website when appointment scheduling resumes and inform applicants whose appointments were cancelled when they can reschedule."

It also directed people to use the United States embassy in neighbouring Togo's capital, Lome until further notice. 

No further explanation has been given by the embassy or the white house for the temporary suspension.

Meanwhile Burkina Faso has said it rejected a proposal by the United States to take in foreigners being deported as part of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

Trump aims to deport millions of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and his administration has sought to ramp up removals to third countries, including several in Africa.

But Burkina Faso Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traore told a national broadcaster on Thursday night that Ouagadougou had refused multiple approaches by the Trump administration to accept third-country deportees.

"Burkina Faso is not a land of deportation," Traore said, calling the request from the U.S. unworthy and indecent.

Noting that Burkina Faso recently decided to lift visa fees for all Africans, he said the country's hospitality "should not be seen as an opportunity for a third country to get rid of certain populations that it considers undesirable."

Burkina Faso's military-led government, headed by Ibrahim Traore, took power after two coups in 2022. Relations between the country's authorities and Western powers have grown increasingly strained as the junta has grown closer to Russia.

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