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The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have sought asylum in the US, in what would be the biggest revocation of its kind the country has ever carried out.
Getting into it: First reported by the Associated Press Monday, citing State Department documents and two US officials, the plan covers B1 and B2 visas handed out from 2016 through 2026, as long as the holder has filed an asylum claim or has one pending. The announcement is expected in the coming weeks and will be coordinated with the Department of Homeland Security.
In a statement, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, “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.” He would not give a number, saying that “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”
Losing the visa would not mean immediate deportation. The officials, who spoke to AP anonymously because the plan has not been finalized, said anyone with an asylum claim already in the pipeline would be moved into a different category and stripped of the business or tourist label while the claim plays out.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also chimed in on the news, writing on X: “People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims. Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” He said the system has been swamped by frivolous claims, and that the years it takes to adjudicate them let applicants work, have children, and put down roots in the meantime.
This all comes as the administration has spent the past year and a half tightening the screws on visa holders, asking for more of their social media history, making them post pricey bonds just to get an application processed, cutting off visas entirely for people from a handful of countries, and running continuous vetting on more than 55 million of them. In that stretch, the State Department has revoked roughly 175,000 visas, hitting people convicted or accused of everything from DUIs to violent felonies, along with people who publicly criticized US policy in the Middle East.
Last month the administration began shutting asylum seekers out of the sit-down interviews where their claims get heard, which lets officers send them straight to immigration court for deportation proceedings instead.
