Venezuelan Little League Team Denied Entry Into U.S. Amid Trump Travel Ban

A Venezuelan baseball team was denied visas into the United States and will miss this year’s Senior Baseball World Series near Greenville, South Carolina.

Venezuela is among a list of countries with restrictions for entering the Unites States or its territories. President Donald Trump has banned travel to the U.S. from 12 other countries, citing national security concerns. The Cacique Mara team, from Maracaibo, Venezuela, was scheduled to participate in the tournament after winning the Latin American championship in Mexico.

“The Cacique Mara Little League team from Venezuela was unfortunately unable to obtain the appropriate visas to travel to the Senior League Baseball World Series,” Little League International said in a statement, adding that it is “extremely disappointing, especially to these young athletes.”

The Senior League Baseball World Series is a tournament for players aged 13–16 played each year in Easley, South Carolina. The tournament organizers replaced the Venezuelans with the Santa Maria de Aguayo team from Tamaulipas, Mexico, the team that was a runner-up in the Latin American championship.

The Venezuelan team traveled to Colombia two weeks ago to apply for their visas at the U.S. embassy in Bogotá.

“They told us that Venezuela is on a list because Trump says Venezuelans are a threat to the security of his state, of his country,” said Kendrick Gutiérrez, the league’s president in Venezuela, according to The Associated Press. “It hasn’t been easy the situation; we earned the right to represent Latin America in the World Championship.”

“They’re going to replace us with another team because relations have been severed; it’s not fair,” Gutiérrez added. “I don’t understand why they put Mexico in at the last minute and left Venezuela out.”

The baseball team is not the first to have issues entering the country or U.S. territories for sports tournaments. Earlier in the month, the Cuban women’s volleyball team was denied visas to participate in a tournament in Puerto Rico.

At the time the travel ban was announced, the State Department said Trump’s executive order contained exemptions for nationals who would enter the U.S. as athletes for major sporting events, as well as support staff and immediate relatives of athletes. The FIFA World Cup next summer throughout North America and the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games would fall under those categories. But is unclear what other sports events would warrant designation as a major event.

“There are certainly things that are happening at the national level, the international level,” said Philadelphia 2026 Host City Executive Meg Kane last month at a gathering of the World Cup’s U.S. host city leaders in New York. “There are going to be geopolitical issues that we don’t even know right now that are going affect the tournament next year, so we recognize that we’re planning within uncertainty.”

LA28 Chairman Casey Wasserman in early June had a similar sentiment after a visit from the International Olympic Committee: “It was very clear in the directive that the Olympics require special consideration and I actually want to thank the federal government for recognizing that. … It’s very clear that the federal government understands that that’s an environment that they will be accommodating and provide for. We have great confidence that that will only continue. It has been the case to date and it will certainly be the case going forward through the games.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino visited Trump in the Oval Office in March after a White House Task Force for the World Cup was announced. Infantino was also at the first meeting of the group in May and said “America will welcome the world. Everyone who wants to come here to enjoy, to have fun to celebrate the game, will be able to do that.”

At the same meeting, however, there was reaction to multiple mentions about the potential of visitors overstaying their welcome: “We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the game,” said Vice President JD Vance. “But when the time is up, they’ll have to go home.”