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State is expected to revoke B1 and B2 visas issued since 2016 to holders who later sought asylum. The disqualifying act happens after the trip is booked, and officials will not name a date.
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Put the figure against the administration's own recent baseline. State revoked about 175,000 visas over the past 18 months, covering people convicted or accused of crimes and people who spoke publicly against US policies [10]. A single action against up to 200,000 visitor visas would be roughly 14 percent larger than that entire 18-month run [15], and it reaches back across ten years of issuance, an average of about 20,000 visas for each year covered [16].
The mechanism matters more than the total. A B1 is issued for a business trip, a B2 for tourism, family visits or medical care [7]. What disqualifies the holder in this plan is an asylum application filed after the visa was granted [1], which is not something a sponsoring company ever sees. The information moves the other way: State began screening current holders after receiving asylum-request data from the Citizenship and Immigration Service [12].
A forward-looking version of the same test already exists. B1 and B2 applicants are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum and to show that they intend to return home [9]. The plan applies that standard backwards, to documents issued as far back as 2016 [1]. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, making the case on X on Monday, wrote that people "are fed up with bogus asylum claims" and pointed to a Colombian who arrived on a tourist visa in 2015 and then applied [13]. That arrival predates the earliest visa the documents cover [17].
For an employer, the operative question is which side of the border a traveler is on when the notice lands. The officials describe the consequence only for people with pending cases inside the country: recategorized, no longer business or tourism travelers, not deported straight away [6]. What happens to a holder who is abroad with a revoked document and a filing in the system is not addressed in the material.
Courts have already rejected this administration's attempts to end birthright citizenship, including at the Supreme Court [14], and the revocation plan is expected to draw challenges too [2]. That is thin comfort for anyone budgeting inbound travel, because a policy can bind for months before a judge reaches it, and the constraints stacked on applicants so far, social media disclosure, expensive processing bonds and outright bans on certain nationalities, arrived the same way [11].
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Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two US officials.
The administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum; the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in US history and would likely face legal challenges.
The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said: "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 declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying "as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis."
The revocations would not necessarily result in immediate deportation; most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final.
The reporting this story was synthesized from, earliest first. Every link goes to the original.
