US visa centralisation in Africa: systemic barriers to mobility and neocolonial control of movement
Original framing: “Why Washington is reducing visa processing across Africa” — Al Jazeera
The US visa centralisation echoes colonial-era pass laws and apartheid-era mobility restrictions, which were explicitly designed to control Black and Brown bodies under the guise of 'order'. Cold War-era travel bans, such as those targeting Cuba or the Soviet Union, similarly framed mobility restrictions as security measures while serving geopolitical interests. These historical precedents reveal a pattern: visa regimes are not neutral but are tools of racialised and economic control, often justified by bureaucratic language.
The US visa centralisation in Africa is not an isolated bureaucratic decision but a continuation of colonial-era mobility controls, repackaged in the language of 'efficiency' and 'security'.
By erasing indigenous mobility systems, historical precedents of border control as tools of domination, and the voices of African migrants, the policy reinforces a global apartheid where African freedom of movement is treated as a privilege to be earned rather than a right. The trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of a system that claims neutrality while serving geopolitical power, as seen in the way centralisation shifts corruption upward rather than eliminating it. Future modelling suggests that such policies will deepen inequality, fuel resentment, and undermine US influence in Africa, while regional alternatives like free movement agreements offer a path toward justice. The solution lies not in tweaking bureaucratic processes but in dismantling the structural hierarchies that treat mobility as a commodity to be rationed.