Trump Administration Ending Visas for Partners of Visiting LGBTQ Diplomats Just to Be Cruel

The State Department will no longer provide visas for the same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats and United Nations employees in a rule change that went into effect on Monday, potentially endangering those from countries that criminalize LGBTQ marriage.

Under the previous Obama administration policy, unmarried same-sex partners had been eligible for G-4 visas even though heterosexual couples only qualified if they were married. The State Department told ABC News that decision to change that rule was intended to “ensure and promote equal treatment.”

While same-sex marriage is now legal in the United States, that isn’t true around the world—72 countries criminalize homosexuality, including eight countries where the death penalty applies, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association. And according to Foreign Policy, the governments themselves will be responsible for providing documentation to assist LGBTQ diplomats:

The United States informed foreign governments that they would allow “limited exceptions” to its new policy in cases involving diplomats from countries where same-sex marriage is illegal. But that government would have to provide documentation proving that same-sex marriage was illegal and commit to accepting same-sex partners of U.S. diplomats.

That exception was not offered to UN employees, at least 10 of which would have to marry by the end of the year for their partners’ visas to remain valid, the magazine reported.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported this morning that unfuckable fascist Stephen Miller has proposed ending student visas for Chinese students entirely earlier this year. The proposal has been sold as a sanction for Chinese spying, but the paper reported Miller also “argued that his plan would also hurt elite universities whose staff and students had slammed Mr Trump.”

Except it wouldn’t really be “elite” universities that would be hurt the most. State schools have been increasingly reliant on foreign students in past years because they pay higher tuition than in-state students, whereas private colleges generally charge their exorbitant fees to all students regardless of their country origin. (The beginning of the Trump presidency had already seen a slowing of international student enrollment and precipitous drops in international student applications at the University of California.) China is the number one country of origin for foreign students in the U.S.: In the 2016-2017 academic year, some 35 percent of international students at U.S. universities were Chinese, a total of 350,755 students.

That’s the trademark Stephen Miller style: Devastating university budgets to own the libs.