State Department spokesperson discusses plan to revoke U.S. visas for asylum seekers

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott about the Trump administration's plans to revoke U.S. visas from asylum seekers.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Let's talk about this some more now with Tommy Pigott, who is the State Department's spokesman. Welcome back to the program.

TOMMY PIGOTT: Thanks for having me on.

INSKEEP: Would you give me an idea of what it is that the government is trying to accomplish with this move?

PIGOTT: The primary objective here is to cut down on fraud - to make sure that when people indicate something to us when they apply for a visa, that when they're here, they abide by the terms of that visa. One of the things that was just described was saying if someone's applying for a tourist or business visa, that itself is temporary by its nature. It's given under the expectation - and the clear expectation - that someone returns home. So if they come to the United States and present something different - apply for a permanent status - that indicates a misrepresentation to the consular officer that was made and therefore could be grounds for looking at that and saying, is a revocation appropriate of that visa?

INSKEEP: I could definitely imagine somebody planning in advance to get a tourist visa and then apply for asylum later. But we can also imagine, in a fast-changing world, that someone came to the United States and then needed to apply for asylum. Are you going to presume that people committed fraud if this pattern comes up at all?

PIGOTT: Well, look. Asylum cases will still be adjudicated. That's something that happens through DHS. But fundamentally, once again, if someone indicates a desire to stay permanently in the United States, then that visa, which is given on the express condition that someone's going to be returning home after a certain period of time, is no longer applicable.

INSKEEP: As you know, many noncitizens here - such as some of these visa holders, I would presume - are connected to U.S. citizens. The asylum seeker is their brother or their cousin or, in some cases, even their employee, someone close to them. What do you say to American citizens who may feel their lives are disrupted by this move?

PIGOTT: Well, again, fundamentally, this is meant to ensure that if someone is here on a short-term visa but indicates a desire to stay permanently, then that short-term visa no longer reflects, actually, what their desire is here. It is important to point out - and this is something the deputy secretary has spoken to - that we do see a large number of frivolous asylum claims. Part of what we want to do here is make sure we have a system in place that is able to properly go through both asylum claims, properly give people visas that actually apply to their circumstances. I think that's a commonsense approach. Let's just make sure we actually have an appropriate understanding of who's actually in this country.

INSKEEP: Many people voted for President Trump on immigration issues, and what they wanted was for serious criminals to be removed from the country. And some people express concern that the immigration sweep has gone far beyond that. What would you say to people who might look at this and think this is just another way of going after somebody who has a technical paperwork problem?

PIGOTT: I think the way that you ensure that you have a system that both works but also has a secure border, both at the Southwest border but also who we're allowing legally, is to have consistency - is to make sure that laws are enforced, enforced fairly, enforced across the board. And that's what we're doing.

I would also note that much of what we're doing from visas has to do with revoking visas from people with criminal activity, including DUIs, assaults and thefts. So of course, we're going after those that are breaking the law, undermining our national security. But importantly, to have a system that functions, we need systems that make sense, and we need to cut down on fraud and abuse. And that's exactly what we're committed to do.

INSKEEP: Is part of the larger goal here to tell the world or potential asylum seekers, listen, we're just not open - we're not available to you?

PIGOTT: Part of the goal here is certainly to say, if you are intending on misrepresenting yourself to the United States, there will be consequences. So that is certainly part of the goal.

INSKEEP: But do I understand the larger picture here? The United States is also pausing asylum interviews, limiting the kinds of refugees that would be welcome in the United States, in some cases saying only people from South Africa would be welcome - that sort of thing.

PIGOTT: Look, when it comes to each one of these different statuses, we did see under the previous administration what was, in our view, an abuse of many of these legal pathways. And part of what we had to have here is a reevaluation. That is true - making sure that we're bringing to an end the era of mass migration, which we view as not helping the United States, not helping people, but actually helping to facilitate a lot of the insidious actors that work to profit off of mass migration.

So we're going to make sure that we have policies in place that bring the era of mass migration to an end. And that includes, in our view, certain pathways that were quote-unquote legal pathways but that, we viewed, were abused by the previous administration. And we view - are bringing back more into line what they were meant to do, meant to do historically, meant to do in law, meant to do in practice.

INSKEEP: Tommy Pigott is the State Department spokesman. Thanks for your time.

PIGOTT: Thanks for having me on.