The Trump administration is preparing an immigration measure that could affect as many as 200,000 foreigners who entered the United States on business or tourist visas before seeking asylum, turning a previously individualised visa-enforcement power into a potentially sweeping campaign against a particular class of migrants.
The State Department has begun working with the Department of Homeland Security to identify B1 and B2 visa holders who entered the country between 2016 and 2026 and subsequently applied for asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by the Associated Press and two US officials.
The final number remains uncertain and the administration says revocations will be carried out on a rolling basis.
The distinction matters. A visa revocation is not itself a deportation order. People whose asylum applications are pending would generally be moved out of the category of business or tourist visitors, while their immigration cases could continue under the separate asylum process.
The administration’s argument is that some foreigners used temporary visitor visas to enter the country despite ultimately intending to remain through the asylum system.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said asylum should not become a route around ordinary immigration rules, describing the system as having been overwhelmed by what he called bogus claims.
But US immigration law does not prohibit a person who entered legally as a visitor from subsequently seeking asylum. USCIS guidance states that non-US citizens who are physically present in the United States may apply for asylum, generally within one year of their last arrival, subject to statutory exceptions.
That distinction is likely to become central to any legal challenge.
The visa and the asylum claim are separate legal questions
A B1 or B2 visa establishes permission to seek admission to the United States for a temporary purpose; it does not itself determine whether a later asylum claim is valid.
US regulations classify B1 visas for temporary business visitors and B2 visas for temporary visitors for pleasure, including tourism, family visits and certain medical purposes.
The government nevertheless has broad authority over nonimmigrant visas. Under federal regulations, the Secretary of State and authorised State Department officials can revoke a nonimmigrant visa at any time.
State Department guidance says revocation can occur when a person is no longer eligible for the visa classification or is otherwise subject to grounds for revocation.
That power does not mean every revocation automatically settles the person’s immigration status inside the United States.
Indeed, the State Department’s own Foreign Affairs Manual distinguishes between visa validity and a person’s circumstances once they are in the country.
Its guidance also says that, outside limited exceptions, consular officers should not revoke visas while the holder is in the United States; such cases are handled through the Department’s visa authorities.
That procedural question could become important if the administration attempts to apply the policy systematically to people already living in the United States.
A much broader immigration strategy
The proposed action is not occurring in isolation.
Since Trump returned to office for a second term, his administration has increasingly treated the visa system as an enforcement tool rather than simply a mechanism for deciding who may enter the country.
The administration has expanded scrutiny of visa applicants, including demands for additional personal and social-media information, imposed visa-bond requirements for nationals of some countries and introduced or maintained restrictions affecting particular nationalities.
The State Department has also been reviewing existing visa holders for potential violations.
The administration says these measures are intended to protect national security and prevent abuse of the immigration system. Critics argue that the growing use of visa cancellation can make immigration enforcement reach people who entered the country legally and can expose migrants to punitive consequences before their underlying immigration claims have been resolved.
The scale of the proposed asylum-related action is what sets it apart.
If the upper estimate of 200,000 is realised, it would represent the largest single mass revocation of US visas on record, according to reporting based on the State Department documents. The figure is not yet a final government count, and State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott has declined to confirm it.
The administration is building on an already large revocation campaign
The new initiative follows a much broader programme of visa cancellations.
The State Department has said that roughly 175,000 visas were revoked during the administration’s first 18 months, according to AP reporting. Those cases have included people accused or convicted of crimes as well as some foreigners whose public conduct the administration considered grounds for action.
The asylum initiative therefore represents a shift in the logic of enforcement.
Earlier revocations were frequently tied to an individual’s alleged criminal conduct, security concerns or other specific circumstances. The proposed programme would instead identify people partly through their participation in the asylum system after entering on a visitor visa.
That makes the relationship between legal entry and later protection claims a central battleground.
Why the policy could face court challenges
The administration has considerable statutory authority over visas, but that authority exists alongside laws governing asylum and procedures governing immigration enforcement.
The State Department’s own rules require visa revocation decisions to rest on recognised legal grounds, while its internal guidance says officials should not act arbitrarily and should, when practicable, notify a person of an intended revocation and give them an opportunity to explain why it should not occur.
At the same time, the administration is already facing judicial resistance to several immigration measures.
On August 21, a federal judge struck down a policy that had suspended immigrant-visa processing for nationals of 75 countries, finding the administration had exceeded its statutory authority.
The ruling illustrates the legal vulnerability of immigration policies that rely on executive action without a sufficiently clear statutory basis.
The asylum-visa programme would present a different legal question, because the federal government clearly possesses authority to revoke nonimmigrant visas.
The harder question may be whether that authority can be deployed in the proposed manner and whether revocation can be used against people whose separate asylum claims remain legally pending.
What it means for visitors and asylum applicants
For foreign nationals considering travel to the United States, the policy introduces another layer of uncertainty into the distinction between temporary travel and long-term immigration.
A B1 or B2 visa is designed for a temporary visit. Current applicants are expected to demonstrate that they intend to return home.
But asylum law exists precisely for circumstances in which a person’s situation changes or where an individual seeks protection from persecution.
The administration is now placing much greater weight on the apparent relationship between the two decisions: entering as a temporary visitor and later seeking protection.
That could have consequences beyond the people whose visas are ultimately revoked.
Foreign nationals may become more cautious about travelling to the United States if they believe a later asylum application could trigger additional immigration consequences, while immigration lawyers are likely to scrutinise how the government determines that a visitor misused a visa rather than legitimately changed circumstances after arrival.
The policy is therefore about more than 200,000 visas.
It is another test of how far the Trump administration can stretch executive control over America’s immigration system while preserving the separate legal protections built into the asylum process.
For now, the programme remains in preparation rather than a completed mass cancellation. The administration has not released a final list or confirmed the precise number of people affected.
But if the reported plan proceeds at anything close to its projected scale, it would mark a new stage in the transformation of visa enforcement from a largely case-by-case function into one of the central instruments of Trump’s immigration policy.
