“The Secretary Said You’re Not Welcome Here”: Five Years of Abandonment, Then Assault

Why This Matters & The Broader Pattern

The story of Kelvin Blas and U.S. Embassy Lomé is not just about one veteran and one embassy. It raises fundamental questions about how the U.S. government treats its citizens abroad, whether oversight mechanisms function, and what happens when embassies systematically fail their core mission.

This matters far beyond Togo.

What American Citizenship Means

At its core, this is a story about the meaning of American citizenship.

When Americans travel abroad, they do so with an implicit promise from their government: if something goes wrong—if you lose your passport, if you’re arrested, if you’re injured, if you’re stranded—your embassy will help you. That’s what consular services are for. That’s what taxpayers fund embassies to do.

“The protection of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the primary responsibilities of U.S. diplomatic and consular officers.” — Foreign Affairs Manual 7 FAM 012.1

But what does that promise mean if your own embassy can declare you “not welcome,” physically assault you when you seek help, and threaten you with arrest if you try again?

What does American citizenship mean if you can be abandoned for five years, and when you persist in seeking help, your government responds with violence?

Kelvin Blas is inconvenient. He’s been stranded for five years, which probably means his case is complicated. He’s persistent, which means he requires staff time and attention. He’s generated external criticism of the embassy, which means dealing with him creates reputational risk.

So the embassy decided he’s “not welcome.”

But citizenship isn’t supposed to be contingent on convenience. The entire point of having rights is that they cannot be withdrawn simply because exercising them is inconvenient for the government.

If Embassy Lomé can do this to a U.S. Army veteran with verified citizenship and 13 years of honorable service, what can they do to citizens with less clear-cut cases? What can other embassies do to other Americans?

Military Veterans and Government Obligations

Kelvin Blas is not just an American citizen. He is a U.S. Army veteran with 13 years of honorable military service.

This adds another layer to the government’s moral—if not legal—obligation to help him.

When Americans volunteer for military service, they accept significant risks and sacrifices. They deploy to dangerous locations. They follow orders. They put their lives on the line for their country.

In return, the government makes promises: healthcare through the VA, education benefits through the GI Bill, support when they need it.

But what do those promises mean if, when a veteran is stranded abroad and seeks help from his own government, that government physically assaults him and threatens him with arrest?

The U.S. government asks young people to serve their country. The least it can do is not assault them when they ask for help getting home.

The Broader Pattern: How Many Other Americans Are Abandoned?

One of the most troubling aspects of this case is the possibility—even likelihood—that Kelvin Blas is not alone.

If Embassy Lomé can systematically deny services to one American for five years, assault him, and face no apparent consequences, what stops them from doing it to others?

If Embassy Lomé can operate this way, what about other embassies?

The State Department operates hundreds of embassies and consulates worldwide. Each has a consular section responsible for helping U.S. citizens. But if there are no effective oversight mechanisms, no consequences for failure, and active resistance from the State Department’s own Inspector General when complaints are filed, how would we ever know if this pattern is widespread?

Kelvin Blas’s case came to light because he connected with Covenant for Forgotten Warriors, an advocacy organization that had the resources and persistence to document what was happening and file formal complaints. How many other Americans are stranded at embassies that deny them services, but don’t have anyone advocating for them?

The Cost of Abandonment

When we talk about “abandonment,” it’s easy to think of it as an abstract policy failure. But abandonment has real, concrete costs for real people.

For Kelvin Blas, five years of abandonment means:

• Five years unable to return home – Unable to see family, friends, or the country he served
• Five years without legal employment – No way to work legally, support himself, or build a life
• Five years in poverty – By November 11, he hadn’t eaten in three days
• Five years without VA healthcare – Cannot access veteran healthcare services while stranded abroad
• Five years of psychological toll – The trauma of knowing your own government has abandoned you
• Physical assault – Now carries the memory of being shoved by security at his own embassy
• Ongoing threat – Lives with the knowledge that if he seeks help again, embassy staff have threatened arrest

This is not a bureaucratic delay. This is a life destroyed by government failure.

And if this is happening to others—if there are dozens or hundreds of Americans living similar stories of abandonment at U.S. embassies worldwide—the cumulative human cost is staggering.

The Failure of Oversight

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this case is not that the embassy failed—institutions fail sometimes—but that all the oversight mechanisms designed to catch and correct such failures appear to have failed as well.

The oversight system is supposed to work like this:

In practice, what happened:

• Embassy leadership: Appears to have authorized the misconduct (Ambassador’s Secretary: “Kelvin is not welcome here”)
• State Department bureaus: No indication they were aware of or addressed the systematic denial over five years
• State OIG: Blocked Covenant for Forgotten Warriors from filing complaints (domain-level email blocking)
• Congressional oversight: Not yet engaged (we have just notified them)
• GAO: Just received complaint, investigation pending
• FOIA: Request filed, response pending, but embassies can delay or claim records don’t exist

Every layer of oversight either failed or was actively blocked.

When oversight fails, there is no accountability. When there is no accountability, misconduct continues. When misconduct continues unchecked, it becomes systematic.

That’s what we’re seeing at Embassy Lomé: systematic misconduct, enabled by oversight failure.

Waste of Taxpayer Resources

Beyond the human cost to Kelvin Blas, this case represents a significant waste of taxpayer resources.

Congress appropriates funds for consular services with the expectation that those funds will be used to help U.S. citizens abroad. Taxpayers fund embassies, consular officers, security personnel, and infrastructure specifically to provide assistance when Americans need it.

The cost to properly assist Kelvin Blas:

• Emergency travel document: $50-200 in administrative costs
• Consular officer time: 5-10 hours at standard government labor rates = $500-1,000
• Repatriation loan: $1,000-3,000 (reimbursable by the citizen)
• Total: Approximately $1,550-4,200

The cost of five years of abandonment and the November 11 incident:

• Staff time across 15+ interactions over five years: $2,000-5,000
• Security personnel time: $1,000-2,000
• Management attention and discussions: $2,000-5,000
• November 11 incident (guard time, embassy staff consultation, post-incident discussions): $500-1,000
• Monitoring “online tarnishing” and coordinating responses to criticism: $1,000-2,000
• Potential legal liability from physical assault: Unknown but potentially substantial
• Reputational damage: Unquantifiable
• Total: Conservatively $7,500-15,000+, excluding legal liability

The embassy spent 2-4 times more to avoid helping Kelvin Blas than it would have cost to help him.

This is the definition of government waste: resources allocated for a specific purpose (helping citizens) used instead for the opposite purpose (denying help), at greater cost and with worse outcomes for everyone involved.

Retaliation Against Advocacy

Another troubling pattern in this case is the embassy’s response to external advocacy on Kelvin Blas’s behalf.

When Covenant for Forgotten Warriors began advocating for Sgt. Blas, the embassy’s response was not to reconsider their denial of services. Instead:

• Embassy staff began monitoring “online tarnishing” of the embassy’s image
• Embassy staff discussed external criticism internally
• Embassy escalated from passive denial to active physical force
• Embassy staff threatened Sgt. Blas with arrest based on false legal claims
• State OIG blocked Covenant for Forgotten Warriors from filing complaints

This suggests a defensive, retaliatory posture: rather than addressing the underlying conduct that generated criticism, the embassy focused on suppressing the criticism itself.

This has chilling implications for advocacy organizations working to help stranded Americans. If embassies can retaliate against citizens whose advocates generate external pressure, and if State OIG will block advocacy organizations from filing complaints, then the oversight system actively punishes effective advocacy.

This is not how democratic oversight is supposed to work. This is how authoritarian systems work—suppress dissent, punish persistence, block accountability.

What This Reveals About State Department Culture

Individual failures happen in any large organization. But systematic failures that persist over five years, involve multiple staff members, escalate to violence, and are protected by blocking oversight—that reveals something about institutional culture.

The pattern at Embassy Lomé suggests a culture where:

• Service denial is acceptable – No apparent consequences for systematically denying services over five years
• Violence against citizens is acceptable – Physical force authorized at leadership level
• False legal claims are acceptable – Staff threaten arrest based on misrepresentation of law
• Retaliation is acceptable – Embassy escalates hostility in response to external criticism
• Cover-up is acceptable – Six-witness incident apparently not documented
• Obstruction is acceptable – State OIG blocks advocacy organizations from filing complaints

If this culture exists at Embassy Lomé, does it exist at other posts? Is this a Lomé problem or a State Department problem?

These are questions that require investigation beyond a single case at a single embassy.

The Stakes

“Every American abroad is entitled to the protection of their government. Not sometimes. Not when convenient. Always.”

That’s the promise. That’s what taxpayers fund. That’s what citizenship is supposed to mean.

If that promise is hollow—if embassies can abandon citizens, assault them, threaten them, and face no consequences—then American citizenship abroad is meaningless.

If oversight mechanisms fail or are actively blocked, there is no accountability.

If there is no accountability, the failures will continue and likely spread.

That’s why this case matters. Not just for Kelvin Blas, but for every American who might one day need help from their embassy and wonder whether they’ll receive assistance or assault.