The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced it plans to revoke non-immigrant visas for foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum in the United States, in what could be the largest single mass revocation in US history, experts say. The US Department of State will revoke B-1 and B-2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 for holders who have previously sought asylum or are now seeking asylum. The B-1 and B-2 non-immigrant visas are issued for business and tourism travel.
On Monday, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the measure was targeted at “foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently”. Pigott did not specify the number of visas that will be revoked in the process, but the cited State Department documents and two US officials who estimated that up to 200,000 people could be affected. The move is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, which has intensified during his second term as president.
His anti-immigration agenda has included visa and green card revocations as well as an aggressive deportation drive, including military-style raids on migrant communities and workplaces by federal agencies including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which rights groups say have violated free speech and due process rights. During a series of raids in Minneapolis at the start of this year, protesters were killed by agents. The Trump administration has also taken steps to limit the number of people entitled to “birthright citizenship”, a constitutionally protected right that grants automatic US citizenship to babies born in the country.
An executive order Trump signed shortly after the start of his second term as US president in January 2025 stated that if one parent was “unlawfully present in the United States” and the other was not a citizen or a “lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth”, the child could not claim birthright. It added that if a parent’s presence in the country was “lawful but temporary” through a tourist, student or work visa and the other parent was not a US citizen, birthright citizenship would also not be passed on to the child. However, in July this year, the US Supreme Court struck down the order.
This month, Trump signed a new executive order targeting “birth tourism” and another order expanding the categories that make some babies ineligible for birthright citizenship. Rights organisations in the US have launched a legal challenge to these in the US state of New Hampshire. In a separate move earlier this month, the State Department revoked more than 175,000 visas held by foreign nationals, mostly for alleged criminal activity, visa violations, fraud, calls for violence or other actions deemed a threat to national security.
The Trump administration has tightened restrictions on visa applicants as well, suspending new visas to citizens of 75 countries. Last week, a federal judge struck down the policy, saying it violated federal immigration law by discriminating on the basis of nationality. As a matter of course, applicants for B-1 or B-2 business or tourist visas are asked to confirm that they will not seek asylum in the US and must provide proof that they intend to return to their home countries.
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