The State Department is coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to strip business and tourism visas from as many as 200,000 foreigners who entered the country as short-term visitors and then applied for asylum, a move that would mark the largest single mass visa revocation in American history.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott laid out the rationale on Monday. The administration, he said, intends to go after people who gamed the system, arriving on temporary visitor credentials with no intention of leaving.
As U.S. News reported, the revocations would target holders of B1 business visas and B2 tourism visas issued between 2016 and 2026 who have sought or are currently seeking asylum. The State Department and DHS plan to cross-reference visa records with asylum applications to identify those who used one door to walk through another.
Pigott framed the action in blunt terms:
"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."
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau reinforced the message on X earlier Monday. He pointed to what he called a broken pipeline that rewards dishonesty over lawful process.
"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 planned action would not happen in a vacuum. The State Department disclosed earlier this month that the Trump administration has already revoked more than 175,000 visas from foreign nationals since the president began his second term. Those earlier revocations covered criminal activity and, in some cases, public opposition to U.S. policies. The new round, if carried out at full scale, would nearly double the total.
The Associated Press, citing State Department documents and two U.S. officials, first reported the scope of the planned revocations. The AP described the action as potentially the largest single mass visa revocation in U.S. history.
Losing a visa would not automatically trigger deportation. Most affected individuals with pending asylum cases would be re-categorized, but they would lose their status as business or tourism travelers. The practical effect: their original basis for being in the country disappears, even if the asylum process grinds on.
The administration has also been tightening legal immigration channels. The Washington Examiner reported that the White House is proposing a $103,265 fee for employers who sponsor skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program, a charge the administration estimates would create roughly $3 billion a year, including $1 billion earmarked for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The core complaint from the White House is straightforward. Hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals obtained visitor visas, credentials designed for short business trips or vacations, and then filed asylum claims once they were on U.S. soil. The asylum process, backlogged by years, allowed them to remain indefinitely. In effect, a temporary visa became a permanent foothold.
That pattern has drawn criticism from immigration hawks for years. A visitor visa requires the applicant to demonstrate ties to their home country and an intent to return. Filing for asylum after arrival is, by definition, a declaration that the applicant does not intend to go home. The two positions are difficult to reconcile, and the administration is now treating them as mutually exclusive.
The move fits within a broader enforcement posture that has defined Trump's second term. The president campaigned in 2024 on a platform of stopping illegal immigration, and his administration has pursued visa revocations, denaturalization actions against convicted criminals, green card revocations, and an aggressive deportation drive.
The administration has also moved on related fronts, including executive orders targeting birth tourism and narrowing birthright citizenship. Each action has drawn legal challenges, and the visa revocation plan will likely face the same.
Unnamed rights groups have pushed back against the broader crackdown, alleging violations of free speech and due process rights. Some have raised concerns about racial profiling, arguing the enforcement actions create an unsafe environment for ethnic minorities. No specific organizations were identified in the reporting, and no particular legal filing or court challenge tied to the new visa action was named.
The administration's crackdown has faced legal challenges, though the details of pending cases remain unclear. What is clear is that the White House is not waiting for courts to sort out earlier disputes before pressing forward with new enforcement actions.
Meanwhile, the debate over deportation policy within the president's own coalition has not been entirely settled. Some Republican lawmakers have floated a softer approach to non-violent cases, drawing sharp criticism from the base. The visa revocation plan sends a different signal: the administration intends to tighten every available lever, not loosen them.
The New York Post noted that the revocations are part of a broader pattern of aggressive visa enforcement under Trump's second term, one that extends well beyond illegal border crossings into the legal immigration system itself.
Congress has also been drawn into the immigration debate. Speaker Johnson has called on lawmakers to address birthright citizenship legislatively after courts struck down a related executive order, underscoring the extent to which immigration enforcement now touches every branch of government.
The ten-year window, visas issued from 2016 through 2026, captures a full decade of arrivals. That range spans two administrations and encompasses years when asylum claims surged alongside record border encounters. By reaching back that far, the State Department is signaling that the enforcement net is wide and retrospective.
Landau's characterization of the asylum system as "swamped by frivolous" claims reflects a view shared by many conservative voters: that the system rewards abuse and punishes people who follow the rules. A foreign national who applies for a visitor visa, clears the interview, enters the country, and then immediately files for asylum has, in this framing, exploited the good faith of the process.
The action is expected to be formally announced in the coming weeks, and legal challenges are all but certain. But the scale alone, up to 200,000 revocations in a single action, on top of 175,000 already carried out, would represent a fundamental shift in how the federal government treats the intersection of visitor visas and asylum claims.
For years, the asylum system operated as a side door for people who could not or would not qualify for permanent immigration through normal channels. The Trump administration is now bricking it shut, one revoked visa at a time. Whether the courts let that stand is the next fight. But the direction is unmistakable.