The State Department is planning what officials describe as the largest mass visa revocation in American history, targeting up to 200,000 foreigners who entered the country on short-term business or tourist visas and then applied for asylum.
The action, coordinated between the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, would strip B1 and B2 visas from holders who obtained them between 2016 and 2026 and subsequently filed asylum claims, a practice the administration calls a deliberate end-run around immigration law. An announcement is expected in the coming weeks, the Associated Press reported, citing internal State Department documents and two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not yet final.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed the effort but declined to specify how many visas would ultimately be pulled:
"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."
Pigott added that the number of revocations "remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis." The screening began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes those claims. USCIS shared data identifying which current B1 and B2 holders had filed for asylum, and the State Department used that information to flag visas for revocation.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau laid out the administration's rationale in a post on X on Monday. He cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the United States in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum, the kind of case the administration says illustrates systematic abuse of the visitor-visa process.
Landau did not mince words:
"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."
The argument is straightforward. B1 and B2 visas exist for short-term travel, business meetings, tourism, family visits. Applicants are expected to return home. Current applicants must now affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove they intend to go back to their home countries. But tens of thousands of prior holders did exactly what those new rules are designed to prevent: they entered on temporary visas and then filed asylum claims to remain permanently.
That gap between what the visa was issued for and what the holder actually did is the core of the administration's case. And the scale of the gap, potentially 200,000 cases, suggests the problem is not a handful of edge cases but a pattern that persisted for a decade.
Two U.S. officials told the AP that the revocations would not necessarily result in immediate deportation. Most of those with pending asylum cases would be "recategorized", meaning they would lose their status as business or tourism travelers but would not automatically face removal. What "recategorized" means in practice for their day-to-day legal standing remains unclear, and the officials did not elaborate.
Still, the move carries real consequences. Losing a valid visa changes a person's legal footing in the immigration system. The Washington Examiner reported that while the revocation would not invalidate pending asylum claims outright, it would heavily incentivize affected individuals to leave the country. Without a valid visa, remaining in the U.S. becomes legally precarious even if an asylum case is still working its way through the system.
Legal challenges are widely expected, though no specific lawsuits have been announced. The administration has faced court pushback on other immigration moves, Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, and those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.
The planned action would roughly double the administration's visa-revocation total. Over the past 18 months, the State Department has already revoked approximately 175,000 visas. Those earlier revocations targeted people convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as people who spoke out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East. Breitbart noted that the new round would push the combined total well past 350,000 revocations under Trump's second term.
The administration has steadily tightened the visa process on multiple fronts since Trump took office for his second term. It has demanded more information about visa applicants' social media histories. It has required the posting of expensive bonds for visa processing. And it has outright banned the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries, though the specific nations subject to those bans were not identified in the State Department documents obtained by the AP.
The crackdown extends beyond visitor visas. The New York Post reported that the administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, foreigners traveling to the U.S. specifically to give birth on American soil so their children receive U.S. citizenship. And the Washington Examiner noted a separate proposal to impose a $103,265 fee on employers hiring skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, a move the administration says would generate $3 billion annually, including $1 billion earmarked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Just The News reported that the mass revocation is part of a broader, comprehensive review of outstanding visas conducted alongside the administration's mass deportation efforts. That review signals the administration views the existing visa population not as a settled matter but as an active enforcement target, a pool of cases to be re-examined for compliance with the original terms of entry.
Several questions remain unanswered. The State Department has not identified which countries' citizens are most heavily represented among the 200,000 targeted visa holders. It has not disclosed the specific legal authority or statute it is relying on for the revocations. And the practical meaning of "recategorization" for people whose asylum cases are still pending, whether they can work, travel, or remain in the country without restriction, has not been explained.
What is clear is the administration's position: a tourist visa is a tourist visa. If you came to America saying you planned to visit and leave, and then you filed paperwork to stay permanently, the government now considers that a broken agreement, and it intends to act on that view at a scale no previous administration has attempted.
For years, the asylum system has operated as a de facto second door into the country for people who could not or did not qualify through normal immigration channels. If this revocation moves forward, it will be the clearest signal yet that the current administration considers that door closed.
