{"id":75945,"date":"2025-10-01T13:31:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=75945"},"modified":"2025-10-01T13:31:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T13:31:23","slug":"us-government-shutdown-sparks-visa-concerns-for-nigerians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/10\/01\/us-government-shutdown-sparks-visa-concerns-for-nigerians\/","title":{"rendered":"US Government Shutdown Sparks Visa Concerns for Nigerians"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nigerians are expressing concern that the ongoing shutdown of the United States government could disrupt visa processing, student travel plans, and other consular services.<\/p>\n<p>The shutdown followed a budget standoff in Washington after President Donald Trump and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on spending.<\/p>\n<p>At the centre of the dispute is Democratic pressure for increased healthcare funding, which Republicans strongly oppose.<\/p>\n<p>Although essential services such as the military, postal service, and welfare programmes remain operational, the closure has forced several federal agencies to suspend activities.<\/p>\n<p>The Congressional Budget Office estimates that up to 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed without pay daily until a deal is struck.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first government shutdown since the record-breaking 35-day closure nearly seven years ago during Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n<p>Since the introduction of the modern budget system in 1976, the U.S. has witnessed 21 shutdowns, highlighting the recurring political battles over spending.<\/p>\n<p>For Nigerians with upcoming travel plans, authorities have advised monitoring official updates via travel.state.gov to confirm the status of visa appointments, passport processing, and other consular services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal &nbsp; Nigerians are expressing concern that the ongoing shutdown of the United States government could disrupt visa processing, student travel plans, and other consular services. The shutdown followed a budget standoff in Washington after President Donald Trump and lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on spending. At the centre of the dispute [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":75946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,249],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75947,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75945\/revisions\/75947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}