President Donald Trump’s deputies are using federal databases for “continuous vetting” of roughly 55 million foreigners who have visas to visit or live in the United States.
“We review all available information as part of our vetting, including law enforcement or immigration records or any other information that comes to light after visa issuance, indicating a potential ineligibility under the INA [ Immigration and Nationality Act],” said a statement from the Department of State.
The statement did not say how many visa holders might be vetted each year. But it does suggest that Trump’s integration of federal tax, healthcare, criminal, and migration databases may be used to accelerate the identification of visa holders who have committed crimes.
Officials are also warning foreigners that federal officials will monitor their social media sites before allowing them into the United States.
The agency statement said:
“The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization.
The number of visas is huge because many presidents since 1990 have tried to maximize migration, tourism, and trade visitors to Americans’ home nation. The U.S. population is roughly 300 million, plus at least 45 million legal or illegal migrants.
For example, officials annually provide F-1 student visas to roughly one million foreigners, as well as H-1B, H-2A, H-2B, L-1, 0-1, and J-1 temporary work visas to roughly 2 million foreign contract workers. The government has also provided visas to the workers’ non-citizen dependents, such as children, elderly parents, and spouses. There is much evidence that many foreigners use fraud to get their visas.
Many other foreigners hold long-lasting, multi-year B-1/B-2 tourist and business visas, or ‘border-crashing cards” used by Mexicans who work or attend K-12 school in the United States. Under President Joe Biden, for example, many Chinese people were allowed to get tourist visas lasting 10 years.
Those visas comprise the vast majority of the 55 million, said Daniel Di Martino, a pro-migration activist with the Manhattan Institute. “55 million is the total number of people WORLDWIDE who hold a visa. 90% of these live abroad and are on tourist visas,” he tweeted.
However, many foreigners use those tourist visas to work illegally in the United States. In May 2025, for example, two Americans were killed by an Eastern European driver, according to FreightCaviar:
On Tuesday, May 6, 45-year-old Andrii Dmyterko, a truck driver from Russia working in the U.S. on a visa, was arrested on two counts of vehicular manslaughter following a devastating wreck on Highway 43. Police say Dmyterko, driving a loaded semi-truck for Chicago-based 4 US Transportation Company, plowed into a line of vehicles stopped at a red light without braking.
Elon Musk’s subcontractors and Ukrainian labor brokers also used tourist visas to smuggle workers into the United States.
The huge population of illegal migrants living in the United States does not have visas. Trump’s deputies are now cancelling the various programs used by President Joe Biden to grant partial legal status to millions of those illegals.
Roughly 13 million legal migrants have so-called green cards that allow them to live and work in the United States. The cards are not visas, but may be inadvertently included in the 55 million total.
Vetting Programs
Under Trump, officials are rapidly sharing knowledge across multiple agencies to vet and perhaps deport millions of migrants in the United States.
This week, the State Department announced this week it had stripped 6,000 foreign students of their F-1 visas. “Around 4,000 were [revoked] because the holder broke the law … with the “vast majority” of the crimes committed included assault, DUI, and burglary,” an agency official told the New York Post.
Officials are also cancelling multi-year visitor visas that were previously awarded to people overseas who would have been welcomed by President Joe Biden’s deputies, but are not welcomed by Trump’s deputies. On Thursday, for example, Rubio’s deputies cancelled a visitor visa that would have allowed an Arab advocate closely linked to Islamic jihad activities to attend a Detroit political rally.
Sec. Rubio is also shortening the duration of those many multi-year visas.
The Department of Homeland Security is also reviewing public information about visa-holders who legally apply for green cards and citizenship.
This week, for instance, USCIS Director Joseph Edlow issued a memo directing officials to check a migrants character before awarding them citizenship. The updated naturalization process “ensures America’s newest citizens not only embrace America’s culture, history, and language but also demonstrate Good Moral Character,” said an agency spokesman.
The federal data sharing is also helping to find many illegal migrants for deportation.
In June, for example, ICE detained an illegal migrant in Hawaii, reportedly after records showed that he had used a money transfer service to send cash to relatives in Mexico. “Several experts said [t] is the first such instance they know of that data being used to investigate a solely immigration-related offense,” Honolulu Civil Beat reported August 18. The migrant had been living illegally in the United States for 17 years.
Linked criminal databases also help ICE agents detain a growing number of migrant criminals, including illegal Jonatan Monzon-Olivares of Guatemala. He had been arrested 38 times in several states and held 15 criminal convictions for sexual assault, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, possession of stolen property, and obstructing justice.
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