The U.S. Department of State—Bureau of Consular Affairs has limited the number of entries and duration given under non-immigrant visa classifications.

Visa applicants, including those applying for B-class visas—covering business and tourism travel—will be issued single-entry visas valid for just three months.

They can no longer access the 5-year visa and multiple-entry.

The updated guidelines, published under the U.S. Visa, reveal that Reciprocity and Civil Documents by Country for Ghana also affect student visa applicants.

F-1 visa holders, who are typically enrolled in full-time academic programmes in the U.S., will now be issued visas that allow for only one entry and expire after three months.

Diplomats and government officials will, however, continue to receive multiple-entry visas with validity ranging from 24 to 60 months.

The K1 visa, issued to the foreign-citizen fiancé(e) of a US citizen intending to marry within 90 days of arrival in the United States, and the K2 visa, provided to the unmarried dependent child (under 21 years old) of a K1 visa holder, are single-entry visas that will be valid for 6 months.

The K3 visa, for the foreign-citizen spouse of a US citizen, and the K4 visa, for their unmarried dependent child (under 21 years old), are multiple-entry visas that will be valid for 24 months.

All other visa applicants, including those applying for B-class visas, which cover business and tourism travel, will now be issued single-entry visas valid for just three months.

In reaction to the US' new policy that affects Ghana and Nigeria, the Vice President of IMANI-Africa, Bright Simons, quizzed whether or not Ghana and Nigeria can retaliate.

"Given the scale and scope of the restrictions this time around now, citizen interest is likely to be much higher putting pressure on the government to openly discuss the measures it intends to take in response," he noted while revealing how diplomatic channels resolved similar actions by the US in the past.

He called on the government to provide statistics on whether or not US citizens coming to Ghana do not get long-term, multiple-entry visas as often as Ghanaian citizens visiting the US do.

"Thus, they are trying to frame the issue as one of "reciprocity". Something that, per policy, they ought to review regularly. Our governments should publish stats on this. Is it true or not?"

"The visa regimes of some other places Ghanaians like to visit, like Europe, China, and the Middle-East are not any more liberal. Getting long-term, multiple-entry, visas for these places has been quite hard. It may be hard to justify retaliation against the US when visa rules for other places seem just as tight or even tighter. Except, of course, that there is no rule that says that retaliation must be symmetrical," he added.