NRI PULSE STAFF REPORT
Washington, DC, Aug. 25, 2026: The Trump administration is preparing to revoke business and tourist visas held by as many as 200,000 foreign nationals who applied for asylum after entering the United States as temporary visitors, in what could become the largest single mass visa revocation in U.S. history.
The State Department is working with the Department of Homeland Security to identify people who entered the country on B-1 business or B-2 tourist visas and subsequently sought asylum, according to the State Department and reporting by The Associated Press and Reuters.
The proposed action would cover B-1 and B-2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026, according to State Department documents obtained by AP and two U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The revocations are expected to be carried out on a rolling basis.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott confirmed that the department is coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke nonimmigrant visas of people who entered as short-term visitors but later applied for asylum to remain in the United States permanently.
The State Department has not confirmed that 200,000 visas will ultimately be canceled. Pigott said the number remains fluid because the review is ongoing. Reuters also reported that the department’s statement did not specify how many visas would be revoked.
The revocations would not necessarily result in immediate deportation. Most people whose asylum applications remain pending would lose their status as business or tourist travelers but could continue through the asylum process, officials told AP.
B-1 visas are generally issued for temporary business travel, while B-2 visas are used for tourism, visiting family and friends, and certain medical travel.
The administration argues that people who obtain temporary visitor visas by representing that they intend to leave the United States should not subsequently use those visas as a pathway to remain permanently through asylum.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Monday that asylum should not be used to circumvent immigration laws, citing the case of a Colombian national who entered the United States on a tourist visa in 2015 and later applied for asylum.
The planned action comes as the Trump administration expands scrutiny of both legal immigration and asylum applications. Since President Donald Trump began his second term, the administration has imposed additional vetting requirements on visa applicants and tightened several immigration programs.
The State Department has revoked approximately 175,000 visas over the past 18 months for a range of reasons, according to AP.
The latest plan could face legal challenges. Just days before reports of the mass revocations emerged, U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas in New York struck down a separate Trump administration policy that had suspended immigrant visa issuance for applicants from 75 countries. Vargas ruled that the State Department policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority under federal immigration law.
That ruling involved immigrant visas and is legally separate from the proposed B-1/B-2 revocations.
It remains unclear how many people ultimately will be affected by the new review or which nationalities account for the largest numbers. No official breakdown by nationality has been released, and there is currently no verified figure showing how many Indian nationals could be affected.
If implemented at the scale reported, the action would represent the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history.
