The Trump administration has announced plans to revoke up to 200,000 business and tourism visas from individuals who have sought asylum in the United States. This action, reported by the Associated Press, would mark the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history and is expected to incite legal challenges.
According to State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott, the administration is working with the Department of Homeland Security to identify individuals who entered the country as short-term visitors and subsequently filed for asylum as a means to remain permanently. The action aligns with President Trump’s ongoing focus during his second term on strict immigration enforcement, including aggressive measures targeting undocumented immigrants and revocations based on political activity or controversial statements.
Visa holders who ask for humanitarian protections start their cases with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, where there is currently a backlog of roughly 1.4 million asylum cases. The federal immigration court, run by the Justice Department, has a backlog of roughly 3.1 million cases, including as many as 2.3 million asylum cases, according to court data collected by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
In July, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made nearly 50,000 arrests, a Trump administration record, according to federal data compiled by the Deportation Data Project at the University of California Berkeley and UCLA.
This developing story underscores the administration’s intensified efforts to reshape U.S. immigration policy.