The Biden-era policy has shifted under the Trump administration, which is deploying artificial intelligence to carry out a governmentwide review of more than 55 million people who hold U.S. visas, according to reporting and statements from current and former officials. The State Department told the Daily Mail that the initiative will subject all visa holders to “continuous vetting” to identify potential violations that could lead to visa revocation or removal, including overstays, criminal conduct or links to terrorism.
A former State Department employee told the Daily Mail the public description of a broad sweep is intended, in part, to prompt voluntary departures by people who know they are ineligible to remain. “They don't need to scrub 55 million. They just need to say they are casting the net as extensively as possible, to encourage those who know they are ineligible, probably overstaying their visas, to self-deport before they are caught by the federal government and punished,” the former official said.
Administration officials and outside experts say the scope and technical demands of a review of tens of millions of visa records make AI attractive to officials who also face a substantially reduced consular workforce. The State Department has cut staff in some areas by about 20 percent since the change in administration, current and former employees say, increasing reliance on automated systems to prioritize cases.
Migration Policy Institute Associate Director Julia Gelatt told the Daily Mail she is seeking greater transparency about how the government will use data sources and automation. Gelatt said many of the 55 million visa records may not correspond to people currently in the United States and warned that government databases used to cross-check applicants can be incomplete or erroneous. “If somebody has an arrest but is ultimately found innocent, that might not be recorded,” she said, adding that flawed records could lead to wrongful revocations.
Technology analyst Rob Enderle, president of the Enderle Group, warned that AI-driven reviews that emphasize speed over accuracy are likely to generate significant false positives. “There is a far greater focus on productivity than quality,” Enderle said. “That means you can't rely on the results... this could result in either someone being deported in error, or found to be compliant in error.”
Advocates and lawmakers have pointed to recent incidents they say illustrate the risks of automated vetting. In April, Japanese Brigham Young University student Suguru Onda had his visa revoked after an apparent software error flagged a minor fishing citation and traffic tickets, even though his record was otherwise clean. Onda's attorney said government officials were not thoroughly reviewing AI-flagged cases before termination.
In another case, Turkish student Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested on March 25 after Homeland Security and State Department actions removed her F-1 student classification and transferred her to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana. The detention drew criticism from some lawmakers and civil rights groups, who questioned whether enforcement actions were politically motivated.
The State Department told Fox News that student visa revocations under the administration have been tied to individuals who “either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism,” a department official said. The State Department also confirmed to the Daily Mail that the department is using automated services as part of recent student visa enforcement efforts.
Since the administration took office in January, the State Department says roughly 6,000 student visas have been revoked, about 4,000 of which were described by officials as tied to legal violations. Department of Homeland Security data show nearly 13 million lawful permanent residents and almost 4 million temporary visa holders in the United States last year, figures experts cite to underscore the challenge of verifying status and records across multiple populations.
Experts have urged more public detail about how the vetting system will prioritize cases, what data sets will be queried and when humans will review automated flags. Gelatt said the practical reality is likely to be an “ongoing database check” similar to systems ICE uses to monitor people without legal status, but she and other analysts warned that incomplete or outdated records could have severe consequences for law-abiding visa holders.
Officials involved in the rollout said they will examine social media accounts, records from visa holders' countries of origin and a range of federal databases as part of the continuous-vetting process. Critics said that approach raises additional privacy and accuracy concerns, particularly when databases have different standards for recording arrests, charges and dispositions.
Advocates for immigrants and civil liberties groups have called for clear standards, independent oversight and timely appeals for visa holders flagged by automated systems. Technology analysts contend the platforms should be subject to extensive testing and paired with human review before actions such as revocation or removal proceed, a process that officials implementing the review say may be logistically difficult given staffing reductions.
The administration's expanded use of automated tools for immigration enforcement marks a growing reliance on technology across federal agencies. Officials say the approach is intended to make vetting more continuous and comprehensive; outside experts and affected individuals warn it could also deepen errors and reduce transparency in immigration decisions.
As the program moves forward, stakeholders from government offices, immigrant communities and technology researchers are pressing for public disclosure of how the system will operate, what safeguards will be in place and how mistakes will be corrected. Without such details, experts say, the scale of the review and the reliance on AI could produce both operational gains and significant legal and humanitarian consequences.