U.S. visa approvals have slumped since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, according to a report which shows how his administration’s policies have shaped who enters the United States legally.
The Washington Post said it had examined the most recent preliminary U.S. State Department visa issuance data, which had been issued between January and August 2025.
It said there had been quarter of a million, or 11 percent fewer, permanent resident and temporary visas issued in that period, compared with the first eight months of the previous year.
The Trump administration imposed a travel ban last June on 19 mostly majority-Muslim countries and those with strained ties with the U.S. such as Cuba. It also paused student visa interviews and increased vetting requirements.
These measures, along with fewer State Department staff to process visas due to federal government cuts, have played a role in the decline, according to the Post.
The biggest declines in visas issuances were for citizens of India and China, which fell by about 84,000 compared with the same period in 2024, mostly due to a drop in the number of international students and workers from those countries.
Visa approvals for permanent residency, or green cards, have also declined, with the largest drops in numbers of visas for workers, some relatives, and Iraqi and Afghan nationals who worked with the U.S. military, according to the Washington Post. There were also 10,000 fewer visas for citizens of the Philippines and Vietnam.
In addition, the State Department paused student and exchange visitor visa interviews before ordering the vetting of social media accounts for all those seeking for visas.
Business and tourism visas also dropped by 200,000 or 3.4 percent in the first eight months of 2025 compared with that period a year earlier.
The Washington Post said it was not clear how much the Trump administration’s policies and heightened immigration enforcement have reduced visa applications but Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric could have been a deterrent.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement Trump was elected with a resounding mandate to put American citizens first. Meanwhile, limiting visas prioritizes Americans in the labor market and education system, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for stricter immigration controls, told the paper.
However, the data adds to a picture of immigration decline in the United States under the Trump administration for 2025, when for the first time in half a century, more immigrants left the country than entered last year, according to the Brookings Institution, a think tank.
This slump in immigration could also pose a political problem for the White House as it has had a role in weaker job creation in recent months, as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell noted last week.
