WASHINGTON — In announcing the United States’ annual list of the world’s worst human rights violations, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo this past week singled out South Sudan and Nicaragua for government-sanctioned atrocities against their own people.

Over the past year in South Sudan, Mr. Pompeo said, “military forces waged sexual violence against civilians based on their political allegiances and their ethnicity.” In Nicaragua, he said “when citizens peacefully protested Social Security benefits, they were met with sniper fire.”

But the Department of Homeland Security has sought to limit the number of immigrants who left South Sudan or Nicaragua for safety, seeking to temporarily live and work legally in the United States.

The apparent contradiction shows the Trump administration’s competing priorities and how they affect foreigners facing government corruption and violence.