The State Department says the US is set for the largest mass visa revocation in history, targeting up to 200,000 foreigners.

The desk at the State Department had seen decades of administrative shuffle, but the file resting on top of it represented a fundamental shift. For years, nonimmigrant B1 and B2 visas—designed for brief business trips, family vacations, or medical consultations—had functioned as a tacit back door into the country. Enter on a tourist ticket, overstay the welcome, and file an asylum claim to anchor yourself indefinitely while the courts churned through a legal backlog measured in years.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out the loophole directly on social media: “People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims. Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” He highlighted a clear example: a foreign national who arrived on a tourist visa back in 2015 and promptly claimed asylum, effectively bypassing the front door that millions of law-abiding immigrants wait in line to enter.

Now, under the Trump administration, the rule of law was being restored.

In coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department prepared to execute the largest single mass visa revocation in American history, targeting up to 200,000 tourist and business visas issued between 2016 and 2026 to individuals who subsequently claimed asylum. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott reinforced the administration’s focus: the federal government was no longer going to turn a blind eye to travelers who present themselves as short-term visitors while secretly intending permanent residency.

For millions of legal immigrants who paid their fees, submitted their documentation, and waited years for their turns, the policy offered long-overdue fairness. Sovereignty, after all, means little if a nation cannot enforce its own borders and ensure its visitor programs are respected. While critics and advocacy groups signaled legal challenges, the message from Washington was clear: the era of treating nonimmigrant visas as an open-ended invitation had officially come to an end.