The Trump administration is preparing to revoke business and tourism visas belonging to as many as 200,000 foreign nationals who entered the United States as short-term visitors and then filed for asylum. State Department documents and two U.S. officials confirmed the scope of the action, which would mark the largest single mass visa revocation in the country's history.
The State Department is expected to announce the revocations in coming weeks. The action targets holders of B1 and B2 visas—the standard nonimmigrant categories covering business trips, tourism, family visits and medical care—issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have applied for or are seeking asylum. The Department of Homeland Security is coordinating with the State Department on implementation.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed the effort. "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 said. He declined to put a firm number on the revocations, saying the count is "dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis" as the process unfolds.
The revocations do not automatically trigger deportation. Officials speaking anonymously, because the action is not yet final, said most people with asylum cases still pending would be recategorized—losing their standing as business or tourism visitors—but would not face immediate removal. The legal consequence is a change in status, not an automatic order to leave.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau laid out the administration's rationale in a post on X on Monday, citing what he called abuse of the visa system. "People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims," Landau wrote. "Asylum isn't supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law." Landau pointed to a Colombian citizen who entered in 2015 on a tourist visa and subsequently applied for asylum as an example of the pattern the administration says it wants to stop.
The span of visas covered—those issued from 2016 through 2026—captures a ten-year window that crosses three administrations. The documents do not specify exactly how many of the targeted visa holders remain in active asylum proceedings versus how many have already had claims decided. Officials acknowledged that figure was not immediately clear from the documents.
The move fits a broader pattern of visa restrictions the administration has pursued since President Trump's second inauguration in January 2025. Those measures include expanded social media screening for applicants, requirements that applicants post expensive bonds during processing and outright bans on issuing visas to citizens of certain countries. Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are already required to affirm they will not file for asylum in the United States.
Legal challenges are widely anticipated. Mass visa revocations of this scale have no direct precedent in U.S. immigration history, and immigration attorneys have indicated that the action raises due process questions—specifically whether individual notice and an opportunity to respond are required before a visa is cancelled. No court has yet been asked to weigh in.
The mechanism for carrying out 200,000 revocations on a rolling basis is itself untested. Pigott's framing of the number as "dynamic" suggests the administration expects the final count to shift as DHS and State cross-reference their databases. Both agencies maintain separate records on visa issuance and asylum filings, and reconciling those datasets at this scale is an administrative task the government has not publicly attempted before.
The asylum system the administration is targeting has been a flashpoint in immigration debates for years. B1 and B2 visas are among the most commonly issued nonimmigrant categories; the State Department issues millions annually. Using them as an entry point and then filing for asylum is a documented pathway, though its prevalence relative to overall asylum filings is disputed between immigration advocates and enforcement officials.
For the visa holders affected, the immediate consequence of revocation is the loss of legal authorization to remain in business or tourist status. Those with pending asylum cases would shift into a different legal posture—one with fewer protections and, in some cases, a clearer path to a removal order if the asylum claim ultimately fails. The timing matters: an asylum applicant whose underlying visa is revoked before a final decision on their claim faces a different legal landscape than one who still holds valid status.
