Former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, an 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has had his U.S. visa revoked just one month after criticizing President Donald Trump online, according to statements made by Arias to reporters.
Arias who held the presidency of Costa Rica between 1986 and 1990 and again between 2006 and 2010 told reporters, “I received an email from the U.S. government informing me that they have suspended the visa I have in my passport.”
According to BBC Mundo, The decision comes following Arias’ criticism of Trump on social media in which he compared him to a Roman emperor. “It has never been easy for a small country to disagree with the U.S. government, much less so, when its president behaves like a Roman emperor, telling the rest of the world what to do,” he reportedly wrote in February.
During his presidency, Arias had taken a stance against U.S. attempts at interference in Costa Rica. His recent comments conveyed his contempt for current Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves for yielding to pressure from the United States which had deported migrants from third-party countries into Central America. Chaves has claimed his country is helping its “economically powerful brother from the north.”
The changes to Arias’ visa also reflect comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week. Rubio told reporters that his department is doing daily reviews to revoke visas when a person undertakes activities contrary to the national interest or foreign policy of the U.S. government or the person is involved in criminal activity.
The vetting process will involve “mandatory social media check[s]” of those applying for student and other kinds of visas to come to the U.S. In recent weeks, the U.S. has revoked visas for international students studying at universities including Columbia and Tufts for their alleged participation in pro-Palestinian protests on campus.
Three other Costa Rican lawmakers who previously spoke out against Chaves have likewise had their visas withdrawn by the U.S., while Rubio has also offered to help Chaves “punish” Costa Rican officials who collaborate with “foreign actors who pose a threat to the country’s cybersecurity”.
Arias is a self described pacifist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 “for his work for lasting peace in Central America” following his efforts to create a peace plan aimed at ending civil warfare in the region.
Featured image: Oscar Arias Sánchez, former President of Costa Rica. Image credit: Gobierno Danilo Medina via Flickr. Creative commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
