The Trump administration is poised to withdraw the business and tourist visas of approximately 200,000 foreign nationals who have applied or are in the process of applying for asylum in the United States.
This unprecedented action would represent the largest single mass visa revocation in American history and is anticipated to encounter legal objections.
Unless adjusted or contested, the U.S. State Department plans to unveil within the next few weeks a strategy to cancel B1 and B2 visas—permitting business and leisure visits—issued between 2016 and 2026 to individuals who have pursued or are pursuing asylum. This information, sourced from State Department documents reviewed by the Associated Press (AP) and confirmed by two U.S. officials, outlines collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to execute this measure.
“We are working with DHS to locate and revoke the non-immigrant visas of individuals who arrived in the U.S. as brief visitors but subsequently applied for asylum with the intent of permanent residence,” stated State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott.
Pigott refrained from specifying the number of visas targeted for revocation, noting, “Given the ongoing nature of the process, the tally of revocations will remain fluid and executed progressively.”
The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorised but would lose their status as business or tourism travellers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.
Since US President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds to process visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.
In a social media post on Tuesday, US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the US and then apply for asylum.
“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau said in a post on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.”
Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the US in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.
B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the US and would be affected by the revocations.
Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the US and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.
In the past 18 months, the state department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against US policies, particularly in the Middle East.
The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the US to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship.
Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the US Supreme Court.
The state department documents obtained by AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the state department received information about asylum requests from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.