60,000 Visas Revoked Since Immigration Executive Order Signed: State Department
The visas were revoked from nationals of seven countries.
— -- A week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily limiting travel and immigration to the United States from seven countries, around 60,000 visas have been revoked as a result, according to State Department officials.
On Jan. 27, the day the order was signed, an internal State Department notice ordered the provisional revocation of visas from the affected countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The visas cannot be used for travel during the 90-day review period established by the order, but may again become valid depending upon the outcome of the review.
The number of revoked visas includes those belonging to thousands of people already in the country in addition to those seeking to travel. As the visas expire, holders will be expected to leave the U.S. They would not be eligible to return until the review period ends, assuming the administration reopens immigration from these countries. Typically visa holders in the U.S. would be allowed to leave and return if the expiration date had not been reached.
Asked at today’s White House press briefing whether the government will actively attempt to locate and deport expired visa holders from the seven countries, Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not provide an answer, saying he needed additional detail.
Earlier in the day, at a court hearing over a challenge to the executive order in Virginia, a Department of Justice attorney reported that 100,000 visas had been rescinded since the order's signing.
However the State Department later had corrected that number, placing it a 60,000.
A spokesman for the attorney confirmed that greater number had been presented in court. The Justice Department did not immediately provide an explanation for the discrepancy or how the lawyer arrived at 100,000. A State Department official noted that the agency is the custodian of visa records and stood by its calculation of 60,000.
“We are not going to speak for DOJ, but our data crunchers are firm on this number,” said the official.
In 2015, the most recent year for which full data was available, the U.S. issued 531,000 immigrant visas and nearly 11 million non-immigrant visas.
In a statement Friday evening, the Department of Homeland Security said that "pause" instituted by the immigration order "does not apply to Lawful Permanent Residents, dual citizens with passports from a country other than the seven listed, or those traveling on diplomatic, NATO or UN visas.
"Special Immigrant Visa holders who are nationals of these seven countries may board U.S.-bound planes, and apply for and receive a national interest exception to the pause upon arrival," the statement said.
ABC News’ Pierre Thomas and James Hill contributed to this report.