US Has Revoked More Than 300,000 Visas In Trump's Second Term
Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times,
More than 300,000 foreign nationals have had their U.S. visas revoked since President Donald Trump entered office for a second term, due to criminal activity, fraud, or threats to national security.
State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said Oct. 20 that the pace of visa revocations by the Trump administration - as it reaches the two year mark of its four year term - has set a record.
"The Trump administration has revoked more visas at a faster pace than any administration in history," Pigott wrote in a post on X. "Let the message be clear: we have zero tolerance for foreigners here on visas who break the law, commit fraud, or undermine our national security."
A State Department official confirmed to The Epoch Times via email that the "vast majority" of revocations were due to criminal activity, public safety concerns, immigration violations, fraud, or other information indicating the foreign national was no longer eligible for a U.S. visa.
In 2025, the Bureau of Consular Affairs established a visa-vetting center in Washington, the official said, which led to the overturn of 23,000 of the 300,000 visas.
The majority of these were for criminal activity and other threats to public safety, the State Department official said, including 25 percent for assault and related offenses, 22 percent for driving under the influence, 7 percent for theft, and 7 percent for substance abuse or distribution. Other reasons for revocation included visa overstays and violations of student visa conditions.
Another 4,000 visa revocations targeted aliens who allegedly participated in facilitating birth tourism. These individuals attempted, at scale, to exploit U.S. law which grants citizenship to children born on U.S. soil.
The Supreme Court in a June 30 decision rejected the president's executive order that aimed to limit birthright citizenship from children of illegal foreign nationals and temporary visa holders.
Following that ruling, the Department of Justice (DOJ) directed its federal prosecutors to prioritize investigations into birth tourism schemes. Attorney General Todd Blanche told The Epoch Times earlier this month that the DOJ is coordinating with other federal agencies to tighten the visa screening process to combat birth tourism.
In August, after the Supreme Court's ruling, Trump issued two more limited orders for "Continuing to Protect the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship" and "Ending Birth Tourism" in an effort to restrict birthright citizenship consistent with historical exceptions recognized by the Supreme Court. The first of these has since been blocked in federal court.
The State Department did launch a birth tourism prevention task force in August, which has led to the revocation of visas in relation to birth tourism.
"One couple used a conference and a vacation trip to go shopping as cover stories to give birth to two children in the United States, lying about their travel purpose in two separate visa applications," the agency previously said.
A Record Pace
In January, the State Department announced it had revoked 100,000 visas in the first year of Trump's second term. By Aug. 10, the department said it had revoked another 75,000 visas in seven months.
Two months later on Oct. 1, that number increased by another 75,000 to a total of 250,000 visa revocations since January 2025.
"Every visa decision is a national security decision. Through continuous vetting on a scale never seen before, we are identifying and removing those who commit crimes, support terrorism, defraud Americans, or abuse our immigration system," Pigott previously told The Epoch Times. "A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right - and if you violate the terms of that privilege, you will lose it."
Pigott's Oct. 20 announcement that revocations have exceeded 300,000 shows the State Department has further accelerated the pace in recent weeks, with the overall rate more than double the 2025 level.
"We are taking, and will continue to take, action to keep our borders, and our nation, secure," Pigott said on X.
The increasing amount of visa revocations is a sharp contrast from the previous administration. Pigott reported in January that the State Department, in the last year of the Biden administration, revoked approximately 40,000 visas.
A recent report by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General found the Biden administration took little action on visa overstays due to limited resources and a policy implemented by then-Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which reshaped how immigration authorities targeted foreign nationals for enforcement action.
As a result, the report found that from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received more than 3 million leads about possible alien overstays, with 104,049 classified as potential threats to national security and the American public.
Only 496 investigations were opened and eight foreign nationals arrested, the report showed.