Trump plans largest mass visa cancellation in history: Who will it affect?

Published On 25 Aug 202625 Aug 2026.

Key points

• Applications were mostly rejected for applicants from Haiti, India, Cuba and Mexico, according to data from the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).
• Unlike the move to cancel more than 175, 000 visas earlier this month, the latest revocation affects individuals who have committed no crime under US law.
• Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau criticised the employ of tourist and business visas as a path to asylum claims.
• Nevertheless, in July this year, the US Supreme Court struck down the order.
• Bermejo Casado stressed, nevertheless, that the actual impact will depend on the composition of the asylum applicants who originally entered on B-1 and B-2 visas.

In practice, the administration of US President Donald Trump has confirmed it intends to revoke non-immigrant visas for foreigners who have applied for or are at present seeking asylum in the United States, in what could be the largest single mass revocation in US history, experts say.

For context, the US Department of State will revoke B-1 and B-2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 for holders who have previously sought asylum or are now seeking asylum. The B-1 and B-2 non-immigrant visas are issued for business and tourism ‌travel.

On Monday, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott remarked the measure was targeted at "foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but ⁠then file for asylum to stay here permanently".

Pigott did not specify the number of visas that will be revoked in the process, but the Associated Press cited State Department documents and two US authorities who estimated that up to 200, 000 residents could be affected. Why is the Trump administration cracking down on immigrants?

For context, the move is part of Trump's broader immigration crackdown. It has intensified during his second term as president.

His anti-immigration agenda has included visa and green card revocations as well as an aggressive deportation drive, including military-style raids on migrant communities and workplaces by federal agencies including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It rights groups say have violated free speech and due process rights. During a series of raids in Minneapolis at the start of this year, protesters were killed by agents.

In practice, the Trump administration has additionally taken steps to limit the number of residents entitled to "birthright citizenship", a constitutionally protected right that grants automatic US citizenship to babies born in the country.

For context, an executive order Trump signed shortly after the start of his second term as US president in January 2025 stated that if one parent was "unlawfully present in the United States" and the other was not a citizen or a "lawful permanent resident at the time of said person's birth", the child could not claim birthright. It continued that if a parent's presence in the country was "lawful but temporary" through a tourist, student or work visa and the other parent was not a US citizen, birthright citizenship would additionally not be passed on to the child.

Nevertheless, in July this year, the US Supreme Court struck down the order. This month, Trump signed a new executive order targeting "birth tourism" and another order expanding the categories that create some babies ineligible for birthright citizenship. Rights organisations in the US have introduced a legal challenge to these in the US state of New Hampshire.

In a separate move earlier this month, the State Department revoked more than 175, 000 visas held by foreign nationals, mostly for alleged criminal activity, visa violations, fraud, calls for violence or other actions deemed a threat to national security.

In practice, the Trump administration has tightened restrictions on visa applicants as well, suspending new visas to citizens of 75 countries. Last week, a federal judge struck down the policy, saying it violated federal immigration law by discriminating on the basis of nationality. Why is the US targeting B-1 and B-2 visas?

As a matter of course, applicants for B-1 or B-2 business or tourist visas are asked to confirm that they will not seek asylum in the US and must provide proof that they intend to return to their home countries.

Some, nevertheless, then proceed to file asylum claims once they are in the US anyway.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau criticised the employ of tourist and business visas as a path to asylum claims. "People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims, " he wrote on X. "Asylum isn't supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law."

Unlike the move to cancel more than 175, 000 visas earlier this month, the latest revocation affects individuals who have committed no crime under US law. What impact is this projected to have?

Rut Bermejo Casado, a researcher in migration and asylum policies and lecturer at Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid, observed that revoking a non-immigrant visa is not the same as terminating an asylum claim.

Individuals who enter the US on business or tourist visas and afterwards apply for asylum derive their current legal status from the pending asylum process, rather than from the original visa.

Therefore, "they would lose their status as temporary visitors, but they would not necessarily become immediately removable solely because their visa has been revoked", Bermejo Casado remarked, noting, "Their right to pursue an asylum application would generally remain intact until adjudication."

This means that plenty of applicants would become entirely dependent on their asylum cases so as to remain in the US. "If those claims are eventually denied, they would no longer have any underlying non-immigrant status to fall back on, " she remarked.

Second, revoking these visas could trigger a legal dispute over whether the administration is unfairly penalising individuals for exercising a right protected under US asylum law. "While the executive branch has broad authority over visa issuance and revocation, courts may be asked to consider due process and administrative law concerns, " Bermejo Casado remarked.

Third, the policy could discourage future asylum claims from individuals entering on tourist or business visas. "Even if it does not lead to immediate removals, the measure signals a major shift toward treating post-entry asylum claims as evidence that temporary visas were used inconsistently with their intended purpose, " Bermejo Casado remarked.

"In that sense, the policy may be more intended as a deterrent and political statement than a mechanism for immediate deportation."

Bermejo Casado remarked establishing who the policy applies to will require extensive data matching between the State Department, Homeland Security and immigration courts, something she described as an "administrative burden". Which nationalities are most probable to be affected?

Notably, the US Department of State has not published a detailed nationality breakdown of those who have asserted asylum after entering the US on B-1 or B-2 visas, and this information is not otherwise publicly available.

Nevertheless, Bermejo Casado observed that the groups most probable to be affected are probably similar to those that have generated the largest numbers of asylum claims over recent years.

As well as other parts of the world including China, Russia, Turkiye and Egypt, according to Homeland Security figures, the top nationalities for successful asylum claims over recent years include those from Central and South America, such as Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

"Some nationalities generate substantial asylum caseloads through irregular border crossings rather than through visa overstays or status changes, meaning they may be less affected than aggregate asylum statistics alone would suggest, " she remarked.

In short, trump plans largest mass visa cancellation in history: Who will it affect? Is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.