President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked more than 300,000 United States visas during his second term, the State Department said on Tuesday. The revocations are largely part of the federal government’s sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration, Reuters news agency reported.
The pace of revocations has picked up sharply in recent weeks. Trump says his immigration crackdown and deportation drive are aimed at improving domestic security.
Rights advocates, however, say the crackdown violates due process and free speech rights. It has created an unsafe environment, they say, particularly for ethnic minorities, who fear being racially profiled.
Zero tolerance: Announcing the latest revocation figure on X, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the Trump administration had revoked more visas, faster, than any administration in history. The administration has no sympathy and a zero-tolerance policy for foreigners here on visas who break the law, commit fraud or undermine our national security, he said.
Rights groups’ concerns: Among the revocations most strongly condemned by rights advocates are those of foreign pro-Palestinian protesters who demonstrated against Israel, a US ally, over its attacks on Gaza, and of foreigners who commented on social media about the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
Alongside its efforts to deport foreign protesters, the Trump administration has stepped up scrutiny of the social media of immigrants and visa applicants.
Rights advocates say the government is targeting critics in the name of national security and is using isolated cases of fraud to target whole immigrant communities, such as Somali Americans in Minnesota.
Although Donald Trump campaigned in 2024 on a promise to stop illegal immigration, his administration has also made legal immigration harder, for example by imposing large fees on certain work visas.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report