Student visa denials are disparate in African countries. Congressional leaders want to know why.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and other congressional leaders have questioned the U.S. State Department to address disproportions in student visa refusals, which occur at substantially higher ratios for African applicants than for people from other continents.

A lengthily reported study of State Department data found that 1 in 2 students from African countries were rejected student visas in 2022, a denial rate much higher than those in countries with alike economic standing and particularly above rates in European countries, where roughly 1 in 10 students were rejected visas the same year. Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, and her co-chairs on the Congressional Caucus on Ghana, Reps. Gwen Moore and Sara Jacobs, called consideration to the falling trend in a request to create more fairness in student exchange – a practice that they stated is a vital means of increasing international relations and the U.S. economy.