The State Department plans to revoke B-1 and B-2 US visa holders who applied for asylum in the United States, a move that could affect up to 200,000 people. The plan covers visas issued between 2016 and 2026.
Tommy Pigott said Monday the target is foreigners who came to the United States as short-term visitors and then filed for asylum to stay permanently. The department has not said when the revocations will begin or how it will identify every person on the list.
Tommy Pigott on B-1 and B-2
Pigott’s description narrows the policy to people who used B-1 or B-2 visas for business or tourism and later sought asylum. That leaves the department with a document-based task: matching visa records against asylum filings across a decade of issuances.
cited State Department documents and two US officials in estimating that up to 200,000 people could be affected. The number gives the plan a scale that reaches far beyond individual case reviews and into a mass records search.
State Department records
The State Department is already moving on visas in a separate action. Earlier this month, it revoked more than 175,000 visas, and the Trump administration also suspended new visas to citizens of 75 countries before a federal judge struck down that policy last week.
The department’s new plan fits into Donald Trump’s second-term immigration crackdown. He signed an executive order in January 2025 that limited birthright citizenship for some children, and the US Supreme Court struck it down in July.
B-1 and B-2 applicants
Applicants for B-1 or B-2 visas are asked to say they will not seek asylum in the United States and to provide proof that they intend to return home. Pigott’s account points to the policy’s built-in contradiction: the department says it will now target people who later did exactly what those applicants had to deny they would do.
For anyone holding one of the affected visas, the immediate question is whether the department will use the asylum filing itself, travel records, or both to sort cases. Until the revocation list is built, the policy is a notice of possible loss rather than a completed action.
