US moves to cancel 200,000 visas over asylum claims

The United States government has announced plans to revoke the visas of foreign nationals who entered the country for tourism or business but later applied for asylum in an attempt to remain permanently.

The US State Department disclosed the move on Tuesday, describing it as part of President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to tighten immigration controls and reduce illegal or unauthorised immigration.

According to the department, it is working with the Department of Homeland Security to identify individuals who entered the US as temporary visitors but subsequently sought asylum.

The administration said such applicants may have misrepresented their intentions when obtaining their visas, as they initially presented themselves as visitors but later sought to remain in the country through the asylum process.

The visa crackdown represents another step in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign, which has introduced stricter measures targeting foreigners seeking to enter or remain in the United States.

“Obtaining a visa in order to seek asylum is fraud — which is grounds for visa revocation,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement that confirmed press reports about the new policy.

The White House, in a post on X, suggested “up to two hundred thousand visas” would be affected and claimed it would be the “largest mass visa revocation in history.”

The State Department neither confirmed nor denied that number. Pigott said, “The number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

Early this month the department said that since President Donald Trump returned to power in January 2025, some 175,000 foreigners had seen their US visas revoked on grounds ranging from criminal offenses, including driving under the influence, to praising the killing of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The administration also recently revoked the visas of Mexican officials, including the son of the former president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. This prompted a complaint from the current president, Claudia Sheinbaum.

Trump, who won reelection in large part on his promise to fight illegal immigration, has expelled huge numbers of people who were in the country without proper residence papers.

But he has also worked to restrict the entry of foreigners who do go by the rules and has gone after those who overstay their visas after they expire.

Some of these measures have been challenged and curtailed by the courts.

Last Friday a federal judge struck down a government ban on visas to nationals from 75 countries who wish to settle in the country indefinitely. These countries included Afghanistan, Brazil, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, Thailand and Yemen.

The Trump administration is also planning to expand vetting of the social media accounts of visa applicants.

“We are making clear that a visa is a privilege — not a right,” Pigott said Tuesday.

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