Trump Admin Prepares Largest Mass Visa Revocation in U.S. History—Up to 200,000 Asylum Abusers Targeted

The State Department, working with the Department of Homeland Security, is preparing to revoke B-1 business and B-2 tourist visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders later filed for asylum, a step officials say could affect as many as 200,000 people and would constitute the largest single mass visa revocation in American history.

State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the departments are coordinating “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 described a visa as a privilege, not a right, and said obtaining one in order to seek asylum constitutes fraud and is grounds for revocation. The number of revocations will remain fluid and proceed on a rolling basis.

Associated Press reporting, citing State Department documents and two U.S. officials, put the potential scale at up to 200,000. B-1 visas cover temporary business travel; B-2 visas cover tourism, family visits and medical care. Both are issued on the explicit understanding that the traveler intends to return home. The planned action would reach back a full decade of issuances.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said the immigration system “has long been swamped by frivolous asylum claims” and that asylum is not supposed to be a loophole around immigration law. Officials indicated that most people with pending asylum cases would be recategorized rather than immediately deported, but they would lose their status as business or tourist visitors.

A formal announcement is expected in the coming weeks unless the plan is revised or blocked in court. Legal challenges are widely anticipated. The move builds on an already aggressive revocation campaign: the State Department has canceled roughly 175,000 visas over the past 18 months for criminal convictions or charges ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for other violations of visa terms.

Administration officials present the new effort as closing a well-known backdoor—visitors who enter legally for a short stay and then use an asylum filing to remain indefinitely. Critics argue the look-back period could sweep up people whose home-country conditions changed after lawful entry. The scale and the explicit pairing of visitor visas with subsequent asylum claims make the planned revocation a central piece of the Trump administration’s second-term immigration enforcement.