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The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from countries that have qualified for the World Cup and have bought tickets for the soccer tournament pay as much as $15,000 in bonds to enter the United States, the State Department said yesterday.
The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration's broader crackdown on immigration. Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.
Citizens from those five countries who have purchased tickets from FIFA are now exempt from the visa bond requirement. WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from countries that have qualified for the World Cup and have bought tickets for the soccer tournament pay as much as $15,000 in bonds to enter the United States, the State Department said Wednesday.
The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration's broader crackdown on immigration. Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.
Citizens from those five countries who have purchased tickets from FIFA are now exempt from the visa bond requirement. World Cup team players, coaches and some staff already had been exempt from the bond requirement as part of the administration's orders to prioritize the processing of visas for the tournament.
"The United States is excited to organize the biggest and best FIFA World Cup in history," Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar said. "We are waiving visa bonds for qualified fans who bought World Cup tickets" and opted in to the FIFA Pass system that allows expedited visa appointments as of April 15.
The waiver is a rare loosening of immigration requirements under the administration and will ease travel burdens for at least some visitors to the U.S. for the World Cup, which begins June 11 and is co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico. The administration has taken dramatic steps to restrict immigration in ways that critics say are incongruous with the type of unifying message that a global sporting event such as the World Cup is supposed to project.
For instance, the administration has barred travelers from Iran and Haiti, though World Cup players, coaches and other support personnel are exempt. Travelers from Ivory Coast and Senegal, face partial restrictions under an expanded version of that travel ban, even without the visa bond exemption. Foreign travelers also had faced potential new requirements to submit their social media histories, although that policy from U.S. Customs and Border Protection had not gone into effect.
Also, the administration had deployed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at airports recently when Transportation Security Administration personnel were not being paid during a partial federal shutdown. Those measures prompted Amnesty International and dozens of U.S. civil and human rights groups to issue a"World Cup travel advisory" that warns travelers about the climate in the U.S. In a report this month, the main advocacy group for U.S. hotels blamed visa barriers and other geopolitical issues for"significantly suppressing international demand," leading to hotel bookings for the soccer tournament that are far below what had initially been anticipated.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association said travelers are concerned about potentially lengthy visa wait times and increased fees, along with uncertainty about how they're being processed to enter the U.S. The bond requirements are part of the administration's larger effort to clamp down on migrants who travel to the U.S. on temporary visas but then overstay them. Visa applicants from the affected countries are required to pay $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 in bonds, which will be refunded if the traveler complies with the terms of the visa or if the visa application is denied.
As of early April, the number of World Cup fans affected by the bond requirement was believed to be relatively small, perhaps only about 250 people, according to U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But they said that number was changing rapidly as more people buy tickets and some with tickets opt against traveling.
FIFA had requested the waiver, which had to be approved by the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, and was the topic of discussion at multiple meetings at the White House and elsewhere in Washington for several months, the officials said.covers Orange County and its 34 cities, watching those long meetings — boards, councils and more — so you don’t have to. San Clemente residents will vote on a sales tax increase on the November ballot to help fund sand placement after an initiative recently garnered enough signatures and the City Council accepted the initiative.
If approved, the 1% tax increase will bring the city’s sales tax to 8.75% and generate around $15 million annually.has left some of the city’s beaches with only a narrow strip of sand — cutting off public access in some areas and threatening to interrupt the beach-front train service that connects Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Beach access is also a major reason why people visit San Clemente, fueling the local economy.
The premium sand needed — not too fine and not too coarse — comes at a cost. The money will be earmarked for sand placement as well as wildfire prevention efforts. This isn’t the first time residents will be voting on a sales tax increase to truck in sand. In 2024, a similar measure to increase the sales tax by 0.5% failed.
Former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra speaks to the press before a gubernatorial forum in Sacramento on April 14, 2026. Xavier Becerra has dodged criticism about elements of his long record in state and federal government. Becerra’s dismissals and dodging of tough questions reflect a confident position at the top of the polls as the long-winding primary election nears its end.
Department of Health and Human Services, a New York Times investigation found that the agency missed or ignored warning signs of labor trafficking and failed to stay in contact with the minors. In a brief press conference after a town hall in Sacramento, he dismissed the criticism and said he wasn’t responsible for the children’s treatment after they left his agency’s care. Becerra shot into the lead among Democrats after ex-Rep.
Eric Swalwell dropped out in early April over sexual assault allegations. Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter apologized for yelling at a staffer in a years-old incident revealed in a viral video that fueled blowback about her temperament. Investor Tom Steyer said he was wrong to have made his billions in part by investing in fossil fuels and private prisons.
But for frontrunner Xavier Becerra, facing criticism about elements of his long record in state and federal government, the answer is to dodge. He bristled in recent debates when opponents criticized the way he handled a surge of unaccompanied migrant children when he was U.S. health secretary under President Biden.
He dismissed the attack as a “MAGA talking point” even though the allegations are based on a Pulitzer Prize-winningwith KTLA, he sought to convince a reporter not to ask “only tough questions” and produce a “profile piece … not a ‘gotcha’ piece. ” The reporter later asked about the migrant children.in early April over sexual assault allegations. Since then, opponents have spent weeks criticizing his record and questioning his judgment as an executive.
The attacks are coming during a sensitive time for Becerra. Democratic strategist Dana Williamson is due in federal court Thursday on charges that she conspired with other strategists to steal $10,000 a month from Becerra’s dormant campaign account to pay his longtime former chief of staff Sean McCluskie on top of his federal government salary.
Becerra has not been implicated in the federal indictment and prosecutors have considered him a victim in the case, but opponents have criticized his judgment and said his connection to it makes him unfit for office. Asked by reporters about the case over the past several months, Becerra has said he approved the payments believing they were for account maintenance and legal compliance.
“It doesn’t pass the smell test,” former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said during a CNN debate last week. On the same network this week, Porter said the unsettled case makes Becerra a risk for Democratic voters. McCluskie pleaded guilty to fraud in the case and is scheduled for sentencing in June — after the primary election. Williamson is in talks with prosecutors about a possible plea deal.
Becerra’s dismissals and dodging of tough questions reflect a confident position at the top of the polls as the long-winding primary election nears its end. An Emerson College poll released Wednesday finds Becerra tied for lead with Steyer and Republican former Fox News host Steve Hilton. Another poll found he and Hilton have far outstripped Steyer. Becerra’s fundraising has also surged.
He brought in just over $500,000 in campaign donations in the first three months of the year; since Swalwell dropped out on April 12, he’s received at least $2.3 million. Democratic voters, anxious to rally behind a candidate to prevent two Republicans from winning the top-two primary election on June 2, are largely coalescing behind Becerra as a “safe choice,” said Menlo College political science professor Melissa Michelson.
Because he’s in the lead, Becerra has been able to avoid discussing the criticism in detail — and unlike for other candidates who have faced attacks, it’s working, Michelson said.
“The attacks just aren’t hitting,” Michelson said. “He can go to the public and say, ‘They’re only doing this because I’m in the lead,’ and yes, that is true. … It makes it hard for the public to know, how seriously should I take these claims? ”No criticism has dogged his campaign more than the 2023 New York Times series detailing the surge in children working dangerous, exploitative jobs in meatpacking plants, construction sites and factories around the country.
The report attributed the rise to a record number of unaccompanied children arriving at the southern border from Latin America in late 2020 and 2021, the first year of Becerra’s term as Health and Human Services secretary. According to the report, Becerra, whose agency had custody of the children, was under pressure from the Biden administration to get them out of crowded shelters near the border and undo a Trump-era practice of holding the minors in detention centers.
He pushed for them to be placed quickly in the homes of adult sponsors, who were sometimes distant relatives or unrelated to the children and who sent them to work. The investigation found Becerra’s agencyOpponents have seized on the report repeatedly during debates. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has run ads about it since last fall.
“The experience we got from Secretary Becerra didn’t lead to better outcomes,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said during a CNN debate last week. “It led to 85,000 migrant children who were lost. ” Becerra has repeatedly called that a “Trump lie. ” On Monday, in a brief press conference after a town hall in Sacramento, he again dismissed the criticism and said he wasn’t responsible for the children’s treatment after they left his agency’s care.
“What employers did after they left our care, after they left our jurisdiction, where the exploitation of children may have occurred, was not on my watch,” he said. “When people tell these Trump lies about kids that are lost, when Democrats repeat those lies, I just say, this campaign is better than that.
” Some Republicans who were critical of Biden’s handling of immigration did claim there were hundreds of thousands of “missing children,” which immigration advocatesvalidated the Times investigation and concluded Becerra’s agency did miss critical safety checks before releasing children to adult sponsors. The report by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General found that caseworkers had in 16% of cases failed to document background checks and other vetting of the adults.
In other cases they failed to conduct required home visits. In more than one-fifth of cases the inspector general reviewed, Becerra’s agency failed to contact children one month after they were placed with sponsors, as required by agency policies to ensure the children were safe. In those cases staff didn’t call until four months later, on average, and at times as long as a year after the children were released from federal custody.
Pressed about the warning signs detailed in the investigation, Becerra told a reporter after the town hall this week that she had “conflated a lot of different things that are unrelated. ” He also refused to answer when CalMatters asked whether he was certain Williamson couldn’t implicate him in the campaign fraud case during her court appearance this week. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report.
Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 has canceled a strike that was set to start at all campuses today. The decision to cancel the planned walkout came after the union reached a tentative agreement with University of California negotiators last night. The union represents some 40,000 service and hospital workers across the UC system.
Members include custodians, food service workers, patient care assistants and hospital technicians. The workers — some of whom are parents of UC students — said their wages had failed to keep pace with inflation, and that they’d been priced out of local housing markets.
After reaching a tentative agreement with University of California negotiators Wednesday night, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299 has canceled a strike that was set to start at all campuses on Thursday. The union represents some 40,000 service and hospital workers across the UC system. Members include custodians, food service workers, patient care assistants and hospital technicians.
The workers— some of whom are parents of UC students — said their wages had failed to keep pace with inflation, and that they’d been priced out of local housing markets. AFSCME 3299 has been negotiating with UC for over two years. Prior to the looming open-ended strike, the union had staged aand filed unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board, formally accusing the UC system of violating California labor law. UC disputed the charges.
“ have reached a tentative agreement ... that makes historic progress and delivers long-overdue security to the frontline service and patient care professionals who make UC run,” said Michael Avant, president of AFSCME Local 3299, in an email statement. “Under the terms agreed upon the lowest paid workers in the UC system will have won their largest wage increase ever and the most affordable healthcare rates at UC.
”In an email statement, Missy Matella, UC’s associate vice president for systemwide employee and labor relations, said: “We’re glad to have reached an agreement with AFSCME that recognizes the important work these employees do every day ... This contract delivers meaningful pay increases and addresses some of the real affordability pressures our employees are facing, while allowing us to move forward together focused on UC’s mission of patient care, teaching and research.
”Skateboarders ride outside the former home of Radio Korea in January 2026. Jamison Properties plans to repurpose the building into affordable housing and the news station has since relocated to Orange County. Former employees and longtime listeners say the station’s departure carries emotional weight in a neighborhood where Radio Korea became a lifeline during the 1992 Los Angeles civil unrest. For many Korean Americans, it is almost impossible to talk about Radio Korea without also talking about the 1992 unrest.
The station became a critical source of information as chaos spread through Koreatown after the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department officers filmed beating Rodney King. Jamison, the largest commercial office landlord in Koreatown and one of the neighborhood’s most prolific developers, declined to comment on several questions related to the future of the Wilshire building where Radio Korea called home.
It’s unclear when the company notified tenants on when they would need to leave or the timeline for the planned residential conversion. Richard Choi spent much of the past nearly 37 years waking up at 3 a.m. to make it to Radio Korea in time to give the morning broadcast.
For years, Choi’s commute to the station on Wilshire Boulevard took only a few minutes from his home near Hancock Park, but when the station moved its main operations to La Palma in Orange County last December, he would have needed to wake up an hour earlier to make the drive.
“That just wasn’t realistic,” Choi said. “So I decided it was time to retire. If the office had stayed in Koreatown, I probably would have continued broadcasting. ” The move hasn’t sat well with some longtime listeners and former employees who saw the station as inseparable from Koreatown.
Choi, 78, added that several longtime employees left the news outlet rather than make the commute to Orange County. By the time he retired last year, Choi was one of the station’s most recognizable voices, particularly during the 1992 L.A. civil unrest, when Korean immigrants across the city turned to Korean-language radio for updates and information.
The station’s headquarters became such a fixture in the neighborhood that many in the Korean-speaking community referred to 3700 Wilshire Blvd as the “Radio Korea building,” and the area in front of it, the “Radio Korea lawn. ” Now, the large Radio Korea sign in big, white block letters are gone, with just a shadow of an imprint.
The company spent years searching for another space in Koreatown after landlord Jamison Properties notified tenants in the Wilshire building that they would eventually need to vacate, Radio Korea CEO Michael Kim said. Radio Korea looked at multiple sites, including one near Hancock Park, but repeatedly ran into issues involving parking and cost.
“We wanted to stay in L.A. We really tried hard to stay, because of 1992 and all that,” Kim said.
“If Jamison was going to renew our lease, we would’ve stayed. ” He admitted, though, that he also believes the center of Southern California’s Korean community has been gradually shifting beyond L.A.
“I understand how people in L.A. might feel about this stuff,” Kim said. “But I noticed Koreatown was starting to become less and less Korean, and I started thinking, ‘Is Koreatown going to die? ’ I certainly hope not, but what if it ends up like Chinatown, where all the Chinese people moved to the San Gabriel Valley?
”Orange County now has two officially designated Koreatowns, one in Garden Grove that received city recognition in 2019, and another in Buena Park that was designated in 2023. Radio Korea still operates a small satellite office in Koreatown, and Kim insists its reporting in L.A. remains the same.
“We’re not trying to abandon L.A. ,” he said.
“The only difference is that we are broadcasting from Orange County and not Los Angeles. ”For many Korean Americans, it is almost impossible to talk about Radio Korea without also talking about the 1992 unrest. The station became a critical source of information as chaos spread through Koreatown after the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department officers filmed beating Rodney King.
More than 2,000 Korean-owned businesses were damaged or destroyed during the unrest, according to some community estimates cited in the years since.
“Radio Korea played a major role in helping the Korean community rebuild,” Choi said, “and the riots became the turning point that transformed the Korean community into true Korean Americans. Before that, people came here chasing the vague idea of the ‘American Dream. ’ People suffered and worked endlessly, but after the riots, they realized that the lives they had been living in America were not truly immigrant lives in the full sense.
” At the time, many Korean immigrants spoke limited English and relied heavily on Korean-language media for information. The radio station became an emergency information network as Koreatown residents felt left without police protection during the unrest. Choi and other broadcasters remained on air through the night taking calls from neighbors reporting everything unfolding across the city. Younger staff members leaned on Choi, who had already spent nearly two decades living in L.A. by then.
According to station accounts, Choi sometimes stayed on air for more than 20 hours a day during the height of the unrest. Yong-ho Kim started working in Radio Korea’s advertising department a month after immigrating to the United States in February 1990, two years before the unrest. That time still remains vivid in his memory.
“My oldest child was only two years old,” Kim said. “I heard helicopters overhead, saw fires everywhere, heard looting and gunshots through the night. I was terrified. ” He remained hunkered down at the station for several days, which at the time operated out of a building near Alvarado Street and Olympic Boulevard.
The advertising department was removed from the station’s editorial side, but he said everyone at Radio Korea pitched in during the unrest. He eventually left the station and went into the restaurant business, opening Arado Japanese Restaurant in 1995.
“Radio Korea was my first real job in America. At the time, I didn’t speak English well, didn’t fully understand the culture, and they still gave me an opportunity,” he said.
“That experience shaped my business career afterward. Even now, I feel like Radio Korea runs through my blood. I love that station deeply. ” “In the past, when I recorded radio ads for my restaurant, I would go directly into the studio,” he said.
“Now everything gets sent by phone. ” He added L.A. remains the “emotional center” of Korean American life, even as more Korean families move to Orange County and other suburbs. Jamison, the largest commercial office landlord in Koreatown and one of the neighborhood’s most prolific developers, declined to comment on several questions related to the future of the Wilshire building where Radio Korea called home.
It’s unclear when the company notified tenants on when they would need to leave or the timeline for the planned residential conversion. Radio Korea ultimately purchased a building in La Palma, where Kim said expenses were lower at a difficult moment for Korean-language media outlets already dealing with declining advertising revenue and lingering financial struggles following the pandemic. Hyepin Im was a graduate student at the University of Southern California during the unrest in 1992.
The destruction in Koreatown and the experience of watching Korean American business owners struggle in its aftermath helped shape her later work in community advocacy. Wilshire Park Place once played host to Radio Korea in Koreatown. The building’s owners plan to repurpose the site into housing. Ethnic media organizations depend heavily on physical relationships inside the communities they serve, Im said.
“The fact that they were here in 1992 made a difference,” Im said. “I think the lack of their presence here will be a loss to the community. ” Im, whose nonprofit work with Faith and Community Empowerment has focused for decades on immigrant and underserved communities in LA, argued that L.A. still carries unique weight within Korean communities nationally, even as Korean populations continue growing in Orange County and elsewhere.
“I could recognize that perhaps in Orange County, some of the things that I could see why they may choose there is a lot more Korean leadership in politics,” she said. “And as such, just like the Chinese community moved to the San Gabriel Valley from Chinatown, perhaps there is going to be a shift that is happening.
” “I think proximity is always important and I would say it’s still what happens in L.A. that impacts the rest of the country, especially the Korean community,” she added. For Choi, Koreatown is inseparable from Radio Korea and the station’s role during the unrest, which pushed many Korean immigrants to engage more deeply with American civic and political life.
“No matter how many Koreans move to Orange County,” Choi said, “the symbolic center of the Korean community is still Koreatown. ”
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