The Trump administration initiated a review of 55 million US visas. This aims to identify violations leading to revocation and deportation. The State Department will examine social media law enforcement records and tax information. Visa applicants might need to post bonds. Secretary Rubio paused worker visas for truck drivers after a fatal accident.
The Trump administration announced on Thursday a comprehensive review of all 55 million active U.S. visas held worldwide to identify potential violations that could lead to the revocation and deportation of foreign nationals. In a prominent escalation of immigration enforcement aimed at purportedly safeguarding US national security and public safety, the State Department said all US visa holders, including tourists, students, workers, and business travellers, are subject to continuous vetting to identify grounds for ineligibility, including visa overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, or links to terrorism.
The review process includes examining social media accounts, as well as law enforcement and immigration records from visa holders' home countries, to identify any violations of US law. New needs introduced earlier this year mandate that privacy settings on electronic devices be turned off during visa interviews, facilitating data collection. The administration has also secured access to millions of immigrant tax records from the Internal Revenue Service to check for violations. Should violations be found, visas will be revoked, and individuals already in the US may face deportation.
Additionally, the State Department is considering a proposal that would require visa applicants to post bonds of up to USD 15,000 to enter the US, further tightening entry protocols. An estimated five million Indian citizens are believed to hold active US non-immigrant visas, including those for tourism, business, and education, such as B1/B2 visitor visas, F-1 student visas, and H-1B work visas. At least a million of them are already in the US. The review expands a vetting process that initially focused on students involved in pro-Palestine or anti-Israel activities on campuses, which the administration controversially labelled as promoting anti-American or antisemitic ideologies. Since January this year, when the Trump administration took office, the State Department has revoked over 6000 student visas, citing reasons such as overstays, assault, driving under the influence, and, in some 300 cases, alleged support for terrorism.
In a related move, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also announced an immediate pause on issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers following a horrific accident in Florida in which an Indian Sik who entered the US illegally made a reckless U-turn resulting in three deaths. The driver, identified as Harjinder Singh, later flunked English fluency and road sign tests, answering only two out of 12 questions correctly in English and identifying only one out of four highway signs shown to him.
“The increasing numbers of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on US roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio said. The Sikh Political Action Committee estimated in 2018 that approximately 150,000 Sikhs work in the US trucking industry, with 90