What the U.S. Plan to Cancel Visas for Asylum Seekers Means for Canada
The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the tourist and business visas of up to 200,000 people who have applied for or are seeking asylum in the United States. If carried out, it would be the largest mass visa revocation in U.S. history. The State Department has started reviewing the plan, which targets B1 (business) and B2 (tourist) visas issued between 2016 and 2026 to people who have sought or are now seeking asylum. Reuters, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and DW all reported the plan in late August 2026. Associated Press
The plan is the latest in a series of steps that have steadily reduced the U.S. asylum system since Trump returned to office. On his inauguration day in January 2025, Trump said an "invasion" at the U.S.-Mexico border justified extreme measures. That same day, he signed an executive order — a directive from the president — titled "Protecting The American People Against Invasion" that ended earlier rules for the safe and orderly processing of asylum seekers at the border. A second order, "Realigning the United States Refugee Admissions Program," told the Secretary of Homeland Security to pause decisions on refugee applications until further notice. White House
Trump then closed the U.S.-Mexico border to asylum seekers indefinitely, froze refugee processing, and cut the annual refugee cap to a historic low. In June 2025, another executive order fully banned nationals of Afghanistan from entering the United States. White House
For Canada, this matters because of an agreement between the two countries. Under the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, people who have already claimed asylum in the United States are turned away when they arrive at an official Canadian border crossing. There are limited exceptions, including for people who have family in Canada. The agreement is built on the idea that both countries run fair and comparable refugee-protection systems and can be trusted to share responsibility for asylum claims.
Immigration experts say the Trump administration has weakened that trust by cutting back the rights of asylum seekers in the U.S. Lori Wilkinson, a migration researcher at the University of Manitoba, said the visa revocation plan may push affected asylum seekers to try entering Canada, and that Ottawa should start considering how to respond. Immigration lawyer Maureen Silcoff said a mass visa revocation would damage the Safe Third Country Agreement so badly that Canada should think about pausing or cancelling it altogether. The Globe and Mail
The Supreme Court of Canada looked at the agreement in 2023 and decided to uphold it. The Court said the deal could stand because it included a safety valve: Canada could still consider a refugee claim if sending someone back to the U.S. would result in that person being locked up. But the Court based its decision on how the U.S. asylum system worked at the time. The executive orders signed since January 2025, and now the possible revocation of 200,000 visas, have changed the system the Court examined.
The broader context here is that the two countries' asylum systems have been moving further apart. When the Supreme Court upheld the agreement in 2023, the U.S. system still had procedural safeguards — steps designed to protect people's rights — that the Court found good enough in the Canadian context. The orders issued since January 2025 have taken apart or paused several of those safeguards. The indefinite border closure, the freeze on refugee processing, the record-low refugee cap, and now the possible mass revocation of visas from people who sought U.S. protection all raise the same question: can the United States still be called a "safe third country" in the way the agreement and the Court's decision require?
For Canadian policymakers, the stakes are twofold. First, people whose visas are revoked and whose asylum claims are still pending in the U.S. may try to enter Canada, either at official crossings or between them. Those who already filed asylum claims in the U.S. would be turned away at a Canadian port of entry under the Safe Third Country Agreement, subject to the existing exceptions for family members and others. That could push people toward irregular border crossings, as happened in large numbers before the agreement was extended to the entire land border in 2023. Second, if Canada keeps treating the U.S. as a safe third country while its asylum system is being scaled back, the federal government faces a legal risk and a political one: the legal risk, if a future court challenge argues the 2023 ruling no longer reflects reality; the political one, if turning away vulnerable people at the border becomes hard to defend publicly.
Silcoff's call to pause or cancel the agreement is the strongest recommendation from immigration lawyers so far. Wilkinson's suggestion, that Ottawa should begin considering how to respond, is more cautious but points the same way: the visa revocation plan, if carried out, would put the Safe Third Country Agreement under pressure it has not faced before.
