According to RMC, Thomas Goubin, a journalist based in Rennes, was forced to rebook his flight from Mexico to France after the FIFA World Cup due to the US rejecting his ESTA application.
Thomas Goubin stated that he had originally planned to travel to Mexico for the 2026 FIFA World Cup but had to change his return ticket because the US rejected his entry authorization application. His outbound flight was a direct flight from Paris to Mexico City, and his return flight was originally supposed to have a layover in Atlanta, so he applied for an ESTA.
He said that he had submitted the application several weeks ago, and it had consistently shown "pending," with the website explicitly stating that this did not equate to a rejection. It wasn't until last weekend that he received an email about a status change, which he initially thought was good news. Only then did he discover that his ESTA application had been rejected, like some Scottish fans, and the page did not provide any reason.
Regarding the reason for the rejection, Thomas Goubin said that he had traveled to Cuba in 2014 and had entered the US multiple times since, so he was unsure if this was related. He also mentioned that the US might now use AI to screen applications, and even anti-Trump social media content could trigger a rejection.
He also said that he often encountered problems at border control when entering the US with a media visa in the past. During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, he lost his passport, which prevented him from taking his return flight transiting through the US. After that, he was stopped two or three times during immigration checks. He believes that this rejection indicates that the entire process "has no criteria beyond complete arbitrariness."
Forced to rebook, tickets became more expensive.
Regarding whether there was an appeal process, he said that the rejection notice mentioned that he could apply for a visa to return to France, but this step would cost money, take a lot of time, and there was no guarantee of success. In the end, he chose to rebook for a direct flight from Paris to Mexico, and the tickets were indeed more expensive. Given the current context and US immigration policy, he did not wait until the last minute to submit his application but applied for the ESTA in advance before his departure.
Speaking about the lessons learned from this experience, Thomas Goubin said that if a journalist like him, from France and with multiple visits to the US, could be rejected for an ESTA, he could hardly imagine what fans from countries the US considers "sensitive" would face, and there are many such people.