(Reuters) The U.S. State Department refused more than 37,000 visa applications in 2018 due to the Trump administration’s travel ban, up from less than 1,000 the previous year when the ban had not fully taken effect, according to agency data released on Tuesday.
The United States denies nearly 4 million visa applications a year for a variety of reasons, including for practicing polygamy, abducting children or simply not qualifying for the visa in question. The data released Tuesday was the first comprehensive look at the human impact of Republican President Donald Trump’s ban, imposed shortly after he took office and initially blocked by federal courts.
The ban has especially affected people from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, countries where the number of visas issued slid 80 percent in 2018 from 2016, the last year without a travel ban.
