Marco Rubio’s State Department revoked the visa of a woman Biden once honored as courageous.
Taif Sami Mohammed Al Shakarchi, a former Iraqi finance minister, received the State Department’s International Women of Courage Award in 2022. Four years later, she is banned from entering the United States. Her visa was pulled after the FBI placed her on its Terror Watchlist.
Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson made the announcement on Friday. The State Department confirmed Al Shakarchi is no longer inside the country. No criminal charges were announced in connection with the watchlist designation. The department did not reveal when she was added to the list or the intelligence behind that decision.
As originally reported, the visa revocation followed more than a year of public pressure from Republican lawmakers. Representatives Joe Wilson of South Carolina and Greg Steube of Florida had accused Al Shakarchi of facilitating terrorist financing through Iraq’s banking system. They called her a “key enabler of terrorist funding in Iraq” and pushed the Trump administration to impose sanctions on her.
That accusation stands in sharp contrast to how the Biden State Department described her in 2022. The department’s archived award announcement called her a “front-line leader against corrupt practices” and credited her with protecting Iraq’s national budget from corruption. She was also promoted under the nickname “Iron Woman.”
When Al Shakarchi received the honor, she was serving as Iraq’s deputy finance minister and director general of its Budget Department. Then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted the virtual ceremony. Then-First Lady Jill Biden delivered remarks honoring the recipients. Blinken credited Al Shakarchi with stopping bribes, exposing payroll inflation schemes, and redirecting government funds toward programs serving ordinary Iraqis.
She later became Iraq’s finance minister, giving her authority over the federal budget, government spending, and Baghdad’s financial relationship with the Kurdistan Region. She had spent roughly 36 years working inside Iraq’s Ministry of Finance by the time she won the award, starting as a budget analyst in 1985 and rising steadily through the ranks.
Al Shakarchi now faces legal trouble on two fronts. An Iraqi court formally summoned her and placed her on a judicial wanted list, according to a report from IraqiNews dated August 9, 2026. Authorities were expanding a corruption investigation involving senior government figures. She was believed to be outside Iraq and had not been detained.
The State Department has not said whether the FBI watchlist designation is tied to the terrorism allegations raised by Wilson and Steube, the Iraqi corruption inquiry, or separate U.S. intelligence. Johnson was direct in his assessment, stating that the Biden administration had honored foreigners who threatened the country, and that under President Trump and Secretary Rubio, suspected terrorists would not be allowed to remain in the United States.
Twelve women were honored during the 2022 International Women of Courage ceremony.