For too long, presidents from both parties have allowed immigrants from around the world to abuse our nation’s immigration system, but President Donald Trump took a small but significant step this week to end those abuses. A sovereign nation starts with a secure border and a visa process that weeds out bad-faith applicants.
This past Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sent a diplomatic cable to all diplomatic missions directing them to add two questions to the screening process for all visa applicants: “Have you experienced harm or mistreatment in your country of nationality or last habitual residence?” and “Do you fear harm or mistreatment in returning to your country of nationality or permanent residence?” Only applicants who answer “no” to both questions will be allowed to continue with their visa applications.
The wording of these questions is precise and intentional. Under U.S. law, “any person not a citizen or national of the United States” who is physically present in the United States may file an application for asylum. To qualify for asylum protection, a person must show that he or she has suffered persecution or fears that he will suffer persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
After an asylum application is filed, Citizenship and Immigration Services schedules an interview with an asylum officer. If that officer determines that the noncitizen qualifies for asylum, the officer may grant asylum. If the noncitizen is not granted asylum, the case is referred to an immigration judge for removal proceedings, where the person may renew the asylum claim defensively. This process can take years, during which the noncitizen is generally protected from deportation.
For decades, tens of thousands of migrants given B-1 temporary business visitor visas and B-2 tourist visas have come to the U.S. on the false pretense that they were coming temporarily, only to later apply for permanent residence through an affirmative asylum claim. The Trump administration’s new questions short-circuit this fraud by forcing visa applicants to admit before entry that they have no valid asylum claim.
Open-borders activists say that this new visa policy cuts off any means for persecuted people to seek protection in the U.S. But there are two problems with this argument. First, while Trump is trying to lower the number of refugees the U.S. takes through the United Nations refugee resettlement system, the U.S. still admitted more than 38,000 refugees in fiscal 2025. That is far less than the more than 100,000 President Joe Biden admitted in fiscal 2024, but more than the 25,000 Biden admitted in fiscal 2022.
More importantly, migrants fleeing persecution have no right to come to the United States specifically. That is, they have no more right to come here than they have to go to any other country. Venezuelans fleeing persecution can find safety in any number of other Spanish-speaking countries, including Colombia and Mexico. Similarly, refugees from Sudan and the Congo can find safety in Egypt and Uganda. There is no reason they must cross the Atlantic and settle here, much though one can understand their wishing to.
The abuse of our visa system to gain temporary entry into the U.S., only to ask for permanent residency, is not the biggest loophole. That honor goes to Biden’s fraudulent advance parole programs, which granted supposedly temporary entry to millions of migrants whose asylum claims are now being rejected by immigration judges at historic rates. It will take years for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track them down and deport them all.
The United States is a country of immigrants, and we should continue to take in honest people from around the world to the extent that it benefits ourselves as much as it benefits them. But when we let immigrants abuse our system, it undermines the foundations of our nation, which are sovereignty and the rule of law. Trump’s new visa reforms are a step toward restoring both.