Trump Administration Plans Record Visa Revocation Targeting Up to 200,000 Asylum Seekers

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The State Department is preparing to revoke B1 and B2 business and tourism visas held by as many as 200,000 foreigners who applied for asylum after entering the United States, a move officials say would be carried out with the Department of Homeland Security and could become the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

The Trump administration is preparing an unprecedented effort to revoke business and tourism visas held by foreigners who entered or sought entry into the United States as temporary visitors but later applied for asylum, potentially affecting as many as 200,000 people.

The State Department is expected to announce the action in the coming weeks unless the plan is revised or stopped by a legal challenge, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials.

The proposal targets B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 to people who subsequently sought asylum or are currently pursuing asylum claims in the United States.

If implemented at the scale under consideration, the action would represent the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history.

The State Department intends to carry out the effort in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.

Pigott did not confirm how many visa holders ultimately could be affected.

“As the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis,” he said.

B1 visas are generally issued to foreigners traveling temporarily to the United States for business purposes. B2 visas typically cover tourism, visits with relatives and medical treatment.

Both classifications are nonimmigrant visas, meaning applicants are generally expected to demonstrate that their stay in the United States will be temporary and that they intend to leave after completing the purpose of their trip.

The administration’s planned action is based on the position that applying for asylum after entering on a temporary business or tourist visa can conflict with the representations made when that visa was obtained.

People currently applying for B1 or B2 visas are required to affirm that they do not intend to seek asylum once they arrive in the United States and must demonstrate an intention to return to their home countries.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau publicly addressed the issue Monday, criticizing travelers he said use temporary visas to enter the country before attempting to remain permanently through the asylum system.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.”

Landau cited as an example a Colombian citizen who entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2015 and later applied for asylum.

The documents and officials did not establish precisely how many people holding B1 or B2 visas issued during the 2016-to-2026 period have applied for asylum and would ultimately fall within the scope of the revocation effort.

Officials said the loss of a visa would also not necessarily mean that an affected person would immediately be deported from the United States.

Most individuals with pending asylum applications would instead be recategorized under their asylum-related status while losing their classification as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the policy has not yet been finalized.

That distinction could become important in anticipated legal challenges because an asylum application can create separate immigration proceedings and protections from the temporary visa a person originally used to enter the country.

The planned visa action is the latest in a series of immigration restrictions adopted since President Donald Trump returned to office for a second term last year.

The administration has expanded scrutiny of visa applicants, including requirements that some applicants disclose additional information about their social media activity.

Officials have also required costly visa bonds in certain cases and barred issuance of visas to citizens of designated countries.

The State Department has separately carried out a large number of individual visa revocations.

During the past 18 months, approximately 175,000 visas have been revoked for people convicted of or accused of offenses ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as individuals whose public statements drew scrutiny from the administration, particularly over U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The new initiative differs in scale and rationale because it would target an entire category of visa holders based on their decision to seek asylum after obtaining temporary visitor status rather than proceeding primarily through case-by-case criminal or security grounds.

The administration has also focused on what it calls birth tourism, in which foreign pregnant women allegedly travel to the United States to give birth so their children receive U.S. citizenship.

Trump has repeatedly sought to curtail birthright citizenship, but those efforts have encountered court challenges, including adverse rulings from the Supreme Court.

The planned B1 and B2 revocations could likewise produce litigation over the government’s authority to broadly cancel visas based on asylum applications and over how the policy would affect people already in the United States with asylum cases pending.

According to the State Department documents obtained by the AP, the review of current business and tourism visa holders began after the department received information concerning asylum applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

That information is now being used to identify foreigners who obtained temporary visitor visas and later entered the asylum process, setting the stage for a rolling revocation campaign coordinated between the State Department and DHS.