The Unjust Justification for Revoking Asylum Seekers’ Visas

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) plans to revoke up to 200,000 visitor visas for people who came to the United States and then applied for asylum. The move is largely symbolic, since the whole point of a visa is to allow someone to enter the country. Once they are here, the visa is no longer needed.

Revoking all these visas will be quite a production; so why would DOS go to the trouble if it has no real-world effect? Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau justified the revocation by claiming that people are “fed up with bogus asylum claims” and that asylum “isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration laws.” He cites one recent example–of Colombian national Humberto ‘Beto’ Coral–which supposedly “highlights such abuse.” Mr. Landau’s accusations against Mr. Coral are revealing; not for what they say about Mr. Coral, but instead, because they illustrate the Trump Administration’s ignorance of our asylum system, and its cavalier attitude towards the rule of law.

Let’s start with Mr. Coral. Who is he and why was he seeking asylum in the United States?

Mr. Coral is a left-wing political activist from Colombia. His father was a police officer who was assassinated after he helped lead the government operation that killed Pablo Escobar, a powerful drug lord. Mr. Coral writes that his “political asylum case was not based on opposition to any particular [Colombian] president.” Rather, it was based on his investigation into his father’s death.

Mr. Coral arrived in the United States on a visitor’s visa in 2015 and then filed for asylum. He continued his political activity in the U.S., supporting the left-wing presidential candidate who was ultimately defeated by the Trump Administration’s preferred candidate, who is now the president of Colombia.

In June 2026, Secretary of State Marco Rubio determined that allowing Mr. Coral to “remain in the United States… undermines U.S. foreign policy interests in Colombia’s democratic processes and signals that foreign nationals may use U.S. platforms to conduct politically motivated disinformation campaigns and litigation targeting foreign democratic actors without consequence.” As a result of this determination, Mr. Coral was detained by ICE, held for a month, and allegedly mistreated. Rather than remain in detention, Mr. Coral withdrew his asylum application, accepted “voluntary departure,” and left the country.

It’s not exactly clear to me why Christopher Landau selected Mr. Coral as the poster child for “frivolous asylum claims,” but Mr. Landau’s vitriol for Mr. Coral’s politics is certainly apparent:

Coral… has publicly claimed that he applied for asylum as a victim of “war and impunity” in Colombia (although one may wonder what that has to do with official persecution on account of his “race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion”)…. he received a work permit, which he continued to renew for a DECADE. During that time, he championed Colombia’s far-left then-President, ran unsuccessfully for a seat in Colombia’s Congress on a pro-government platform, made defamatory comments about a former Colombian President that he was forced to retract, and tried to wage lawfare in our system against then-candidate for President (now President) [Abelardo de la Espriella]. Meanwhile, he denounced the alleged “persecution” of Hispanics in the US…. Talk about an Alice-in-Wonderland scenario: while seeking asylum IN our country FROM Colombia, he was accusing our government of putting people in concentration camps and shilling for Colombia’s far-left government…. True to form, he now alleges that he was “tortured” while detained as a “political prisoner” in the US–and, for good measure, challenges the legitimacy of the recent Colombian election…. If this isn’t a perfect example of the dysfunction and abuse of our asylum system, I don’t know what is.

Setting aside Mr. Landau’s uniformed view of the substantive asylum law and his apparent ignorance of the interminable procedural delays, this all sounds a lot like political activity, which is a protected category under the asylum law. Indeed, from Mr. Landau’s summary, it appears that Mr. Coral has a strong case for asylum and I can’t imagine any Immigration Judge finding his application frivolous.

The problem, of course, is not that Mr. Coral doesn’t have a political opinion. The problem is that he has the wrong political opinion, at least from the perspective of the Trump Administration. But rejecting an asylum seeker because you don’t like his particular viewpoint is fundamentally inconsistent with the law of asylum.

Asylum was created to protect people who face persecution on account of their political opinion. We as a nation have committed to protect such people because it reflects our values–we believe in Free Speech, especially when that speech involves a political opinion. The specific views expressed are irrelevant to that principle and, more importantly, they are irrelevant to the law of asylum, which protects people who face political persecution regardless of their ideology. And so Mr, Landau’s suggestion that we should deny asylum to people whose views are not aligned with the current Administration runs counter to our nation’s law. More than that, Mr. Landau’s assertion that such cases are frivolous and should serve as justification for revoking tens of thousands of visas is disingenuous and dangerous. Even if you agree with Mr. Landau that we should not offer protection to people whose views we don’t like, the law would need to be changed (by Congress) to implement such a policy. Thus, on top of everything else, Mr. Landau’s views stand in opposition to the rule of law.

Despite it all, the State Department appears poised to start revoking asylum seekers’ visas. While the effect on most applicants will be minimal, I fear that the harm to our government’s moral standing and commitment to the rule of law will be profound.