The U.S. has revoked more than 175,000 visas since Trump returned to power
The U.S. State Department has revoked more than 175,000 visas issued to foreign nationals since Donald Trump returned to the presidency. According to the U.S. agency, the rate of visa revocations was roughly four times higher than during the final year of Joe Biden’s presidency, The Guardian World reports.
The State Department stated that visas were revoked for individuals who, according to the agency, violated the terms of their visas, committed crimes, incited violence against Americans, defrauded U.S. citizens, abused the immigration system, or posed a threat to national security. Among the common grounds cited by the department were encounters with law enforcement due to assaults, driving under the influence, theft, and drug-related offenses.
In 2024, the State Department under the Biden administration revoked approximately 40,000 visas. In 2025, the Trump administration revoked more than 100,000 visas. The average monthly number of such decisions rose from approximately 8,000 in 2025 to over 10,000 in 2026. At the same time, the agency did not disclose a breakdown of the 175,000 revoked visas by category of reason, so it is unknown how many decisions were related to serious crimes and how many to less serious violations, such as exceeding the permitted length of stay.
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Some of the cases involved political statements. In particular, the visa of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was revoked after she co-authored an article criticizing the university’s position on the war in Gaza. She was detained by immigration authorities, but a judge later dismissed the case against her. Ozturk subsequently returned to Turkey.
The State Department reported that the continuous vetting system introduced last year covers approximately 55 million foreign nationals with valid U.S. visas. Its purpose is to identify signs that a person no longer meets the conditions of their status. The department emphasized: “A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right.”
Visa revocation is a separate procedure from deportation, which falls under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That agency stated that more than 605,000 people have been removed from the country since the beginning of Trump’s term.
