LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces an embarrassing stance on Tuesday after US authorities barred his girlfriend from entering her country. Carrie Simmonds had applied for a visit visa to the United States as part of her work with a US-based environmental group, but the authorities refused.
The refusal appears to stem from Simmonds' visit to East Africa, a conflict-ridden region, and she went with Somaliland-born boyfriend Nimkun Ali, who is campaigning against FGM. During their visit, they met the unrecognized President of Somaliland, Bihi Abdi, to discuss women's issues and sea pollution. The UK is among a handful of countries with diplomatic ties with Somaliland, which broke away from neighboring Somalia in 1991, and because the United States supports Somalia, it does not recognize Somaliland.
It is uncertain whether Simmonds has applied for a visa from the electronic ASTA system, which grants the visa after examining the applicant's visit to specific regions of the world. Somaliland had.
The system determines whether a tourist can enter the country for 90 days without a visa, provided that it does not pose a security risk.
In 2016, a question was added to this device, asking the applicant: Did you travel to Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, or Yemen, on or after March 1, 2011? Miss Simmonds is in a race against time to lift the ban. Efforts to resolve the issue quickly seem more difficult, because they cannot - formally - ask No. 10 Downing Street to intervene on their behalf.
When she moved to 10 Downing Street, officials issued a carefully crafted statement saying that her move would not incur an additional cost to the taxpayer. This reflects the fact that she is not married to Johnson, who is still associated with a second wife, Marina Wheeler, the mother of his four children. This means that unlike the wives of former prime ministers like Sherry Blair or Samantha Cameron, she does not have her own staff of Downing Street employees. The reason for the rejection is not yet known, but a diplomatic source said: "We hope that this problem will be resolved in time, so that Simmonds will go to the United States as planned."
For decades, various Somali regions have been subjected to violence by rival terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and al-Shabaab. Somalia is linked in the minds of many Americans to the tragedy of the downing of two US Black Hawks in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and the deaths of 18 US special forces soldiers in 1993, who were on a lightning mission to capture a warlord.
The rejection stems from Simmonds' visit to East Africa, a conflict-plagued region.