Venezuelan youth baseball team, denied visas, is left out of tournament in US

By Tim Balk

After a team of talented teenage baseball players from Venezuela swept through a qualifying tournament in Mexico last month, it seemed they were bound for the Senior League World Series in the United States, ready to take on some of the world’s best youth ballclubs.

But when the championship round began in Easley, South Carolina, on Saturday, the undefeated squad from Venezuela was not there. The team, Cacique Mara, has been denied the visas necessary to attend, Little League Baseball International said Friday.

A team from Mexico, Santa María de Aguayo of Victoria, is taking its place.

The Senior League World Series invites 12 teams of players ages 13-16 — older than those in the higher-profile Little League World Series, which is for ages 10-12 and is a staple of ESPN’s daytime summer programming.

Cacique Mara said it learned a week ago that the visas had been denied. Its players, raised in one of the world’s most unstable countries, are demoralized, the team’s president said.

It appeared that Cacique Mara had been swept up in the severe travel restrictions that President Donald Trump has placed on more than a dozen countries. The administration allows exceptions for athletes and coaches traveling for major athletic competitions such as the World Cup and the Olympics.

Cacique Mara said on social media that players and coaches from the team sat for interviews July 14 to try to secure visas, but were denied by an immigration officer.

The White House referred inquiries to the State Department, which said in a statement Saturday that its consular officers were reviewing the case to check if “proper procedures” had been followed.

Since returning to office, Trump has imposed travel bans on at least 12 countries, while restricting visas for citizens from another seven countries, including Venezuela, which is gripped by poverty, hyperinflation, political instability, violent crime and an authoritarian government.

To qualify for the Senior League World Series, which is run by the same organization that hosts the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Cacique Mara dominated the Latin America Region Tournament, played in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, over five days in mid-June.

The team won all five games in the regional, beating its opponents by a total of 45 runs.