WASHINGTON: The United States has revoked more than 100,000 visas since President Donald Trump took office on an anti-migrant platform, a record for a single year, the State Department said Monday.
“The Trump administration has no higher priority than protecting American citizens and upholding American sovereignty,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.
The figure since Trump’s second inauguration on January 20, 2025 is two and a half times the number revoked in 2024, when Joe Biden was president.
The State Department said that “thousands” of the visas were revoked over crimes, which can include assault and also drunk driving.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has proudly highlighted his revocation of visas from students who protested against Israel.
Rubio used a McCarthy-era law that allows the United States to block entry to foreigners seen as going against US foreign policy, although some of his high-profile targets successfully challenged deportation orders in court.
The State Department said 8,000 of the revoked visas were for students.
The Trump administration has also tightened vetting for visas, including moving to screen social media postings of visitors.
The visa revocations are part of a wider campaign of mass deportations, carried out aggressively through a surge of federal agents.
The Department of Homeland Security last month said that the Trump administration has deported more than 605,000 people, and that 2.5 million others left on their own.
US says revoked 100,000 visas since Trump return
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US says revoked 100,000 visas since Trump return
- The figure is two and a half times the number revoked in 2024, when Joe Biden was president
- The State Department said 8,000 of the revoked visas were for students
Poland to seek help from two other countries in Epstein investigation
- The Polish National Prosecutor’s Office confirmed in its statement that it had initiated an investigation into human trafficking
- Prosecutors suspect the trafficking consisted of recruiting women and girls for work abroad
WARSAW: Poland will ask two other European countries for information and evidence needed for its investigation into human trafficking related to late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, prosecutors said on Wednesday.
In a statement, they said documents from the Epstein files indicated a reasonable suspicion that human trafficking had taken place in Poland. They did not name the European countries they would contact but a source familiar with the matter told Reuters the prosecutors would ask France and Sweden for help.
The US Justice Department’s release of millions of internal documents related to Epstein has revealed the late financier and sex offender’s ties to many prominent people in politics, finance, academia and business — both before and after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution charges.
In February, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced that Poland would launch an investigation into possible links between Epstein and Russian intelligence, as well as any offenses affecting Polish citizens.
The Polish National Prosecutor’s Office confirmed in its statement that it had initiated an investigation into human trafficking committed in the period from 2009 to August 2019 on the territory of Poland and other countries.
Prosecutors suspect the trafficking consisted of recruiting women and girls for work abroad under false pretenses and of then transporting them outside Poland and handing them over to other people for sexual exploitation, the statement said.
Files reviewed by Reuters show that a man called Daniel Siad had informed Epstein about his travels through Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, among other countries, scouting for models.
He also mentioned his cooperation with Jean-Luc Brunel, a key suspect and longtime Epstein associate, who died in a French prison in 2022.
According to Polish media reports, Siad was born in Algeria and moved to Sweden at the age of 23.
Reuters reached out to him on two phone numbers and an email address found in the files, but has not yet received answers to questions sent.
In February, Swedish newspaper Expressen quoted Siad as saying he had never committed a crime and was open to talking to investigators in any interested country.
