Mubanga Pamela Hatyoka is a 25-year-old registered nurse and the reigning Miss Universe Zambia. She will not be in Puerto Rico. Georgina Kambongo, who would have been the Republic of Congo’s first Miss Universe contestant, has also withdrawn. Both were stopped by the Trump administration’s travel restrictions on African countries.
Two more African contestants are still waiting, as Atlanta Black Star reported Friday. Roseanna Hall of Zimbabwe, 34, and Adut Deng of South Sudan had not been cleared to travel. Contestants were due to arrive for the 75th Miss Universe pageant on Nov. 8. The finale is Nov. 24 in San Juan.
Hall said she had been in South Africa for a week when the day she was meant to fly came and went. “I have been in South Africa for the past week and officially today is the day I was supposed be leaving for Puerto Rico,” she wrote. “I am not alone in this predicament, I know some of my African sisters who have been facing the same challenges.” She thanked the Zimbabwean government and the pageant’s national organisers for “tirelessly working with me to get this visa approved.”
The cause is a presidential proclamation issued in December 2025 that took effect Jan. 1. It partially suspends entry for nationals of Zambia and Zimbabwe on tourist, business, student and exchange visas, and applies full restrictions to South Sudan. It allows case-by-case national interest exceptions and an exception for major sporting events. The administration’s stated reason for the Zimbabwe listing, as African outlets have reported, is a high rate of visa overstays.
That is a migration policy, and no one has said any of these women meant to stay. They were coming for about three weeks to compete in a sponsored pageant. It is the kind of case a national interest exception exists for, and as of Friday two of the four still had no answer.
Miss Universe Zambia’s organizers said what the rule costs: “She earned her crown, she earned her title, and she deserves the opportunity to represent the nation she proudly serves.”
The pageant is the case that reached the cameras. The same proclamation applies to students and exchange visitors from those countries, and to Zambian, Zimbabwean and South Sudanese families trying to reach relatives in the United States. A ban that treats a 25-year-old nurse as a risk tells Black Africans plainly where they stand in the line for entry. If the State Department wants to show the rule is about overstays and not about who is allowed in, clearing Hall and Deng before the national costume round on Nov. 21 would be a start.
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