Trump Imposes Maximum Pressure with Visa Cancellations Targeting 300 Iranian Elites

(UNITED STATES) — The Trump administration has intensified its “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran by moving to revoke visas and green cards held by people it identifies as Iranian elites living in the United States, widening an immigration crackdown that now reaches legal residents as well as visa holders.

Officials from the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have framed the effort as part of a broader wartime posture toward Tehran, with actions aimed at relatives and associates of the Iranian regime and at applicants whose cases remain pending inside the U.S. system.

The shift marks a new phase in the administration’s use of immigration law against nationals from an adversary state. It also comes as President Trump has set an April 7, 2026, 8:00 PM ET deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while threatening “complete demolition” of Iranian infrastructure if terms are not met.

On April 4, 2026, the State Department and DHS issued coordinated statements on the immediate revocation of legal status for high-profile Iranian nationals. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an official release, “The Trump administration will not allow our country to become a home for foreign nationals who support anti-American terrorist regimes. We are terminating the legal status of those who benefit from the Iranian regime’s corruption while actively celebrating attacks on our service members.”

Rubio also wrote on X about arrests in Los Angeles. “Hamideh Soleimani Afshar [niece of Qassem Soleimani] and her daughter are now in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their green cards have been revoked. No one who calls America the ‘Great Satan’ will be allowed to live and prosper here.”

A day later, DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis described a wider review of existing immigration cases. “USCIS is conducting a retrospective review of asylum and residency claims. In cases where individuals have traveled back to Iran or provided fraudulent information about their ties to the IRGC, we are moving for immediate rescission and removal,” Bis said on April 5, 2026.

Taken together, the statements showed that the administration was not limiting the effort to future entries. It was also revisiting old approvals and screening people who had already secured legal status in the United States.

That includes people with Lawful Permanent Resident status. The administration has begun revoking green cards for individuals it deems a “foreign-policy risk” under INA Section 212(a)(3)(C), a step described as an “exceedingly rare” use of that authority.

The scale extends beyond a handful of high-profile cases. Up to 4,000 visas and green cards held by Iranian elites, described as relatives of senior IRGC and government officials, are under review for cancellation.

Those actions sit atop a broader set of restrictions that took effect at the start of the year. Under Presidential Proclamation 10998, effective January 1, 2026, the administration fully suspended both immigrant and nonimmigrant visa issuance for Iranian nationals, including student F-1 visas.

That suspension went further than the first Trump administration’s approach by closing off a category that had previously remained available. For Iranian students and professionals seeking entry from abroad, it shut down both temporary and permanent visa channels on the same date.

Inside the United States, USCIS froze another route. USCIS Policy Memorandum PM-602-0194, issued on January 1, 2026, placed an indefinite hold on pending immigration benefit applications including I-485, I-140 and N-400 for citizens of 19 “high-risk” countries, including Iran.

That adjudication hold effectively removed what many Iranians had treated as a workaround. People already in the country could no longer count on adjustment of status pathways to move from one legal category to another while remaining on U.S. soil.

The administration has also tied the policy to its wider security screening agenda. A USCIS screening and vetting update forms part of the official record surrounding the new measures.

The combination of a visa suspension abroad, a hold on pending benefits at home and green card rescissions for some residents amounts to a broader reworking of how immigration law can be used in a geopolitical conflict. Rather than stopping at the border, the policy reaches into the existing immigrant population.

Officials have presented that expansion as intentional. Rubio’s statements focused on foreign nationals who, in the administration’s view, benefited from the Iranian regime while living in the United States, and Bis’s remarks pointed to reviews of past asylum and residency claims.

The wartime context has sharpened that message. The immigration moves coincide with direct military conflict involving the U.S., Israel and Iran, and they have unfolded as Washington presses Tehran under a deadline tied to the Strait of Hormuz.

That timing matters because it places immigration enforcement inside the administration’s broader coercive campaign against Iran. The “maximum pressure” language long used for sanctions and diplomatic isolation now extends directly to visa cancellations, adjudication freezes and the possible removal of legal residents.

The impact is likely to stretch far beyond the Iranian elites singled out in public statements. Thousands of Iranian professionals and students have been affected by the wider restrictions, while over 100,000 visas across all categories have reportedly been revoked or suspended since the administration took office in 2025.

For students, the loss of F-1 issuance closes a route that many had used to enter U.S. universities. For workers and families already in the country, the adjudication hold on I-485, I-140 and N-400 applications blocks progress toward permanent residence, employment-based immigration benefits and naturalization.

For permanent residents caught in the new review, the risks are higher still. Green card holders usually enjoy more stable status than temporary visa holders, which makes the use of foreign-policy grounds to revoke Lawful Permanent Resident status a striking development.

The administration’s language has also drawn a direct line between immigration status and alleged ties to the Iranian state or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Bis said USCIS was reviewing cases involving travel back to Iran and allegedly false information about links to the IRGC, while Rubio’s April 4 comments cast the effort in ideological terms.

In public, the government has pointed to prominent examples. The detention of Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter in Los Angeles became an early symbol of the campaign, especially after Rubio announced that their green cards had been revoked and that both were in ICE custody.

Their case illustrated how quickly the administration was willing to move from rhetoric to enforcement. It also showed that visa cancellations were not the only tool in use; immigration detention and removal proceedings are part of the same push.

The legal architecture behind the crackdown is spread across agencies. The State Department controls visa issuance abroad, DHS oversees enforcement and removals, and USCIS handles immigration benefits and has now frozen many pending applications from citizens of the listed countries.

That interagency alignment became visible on April 4, 2026, when State and DHS released coordinated statements, then on April 5, 2026, when Bis described retrospective case reviews and potential rescission. The sequencing signaled a policy built to operate on several fronts at once.

For Iranians already in the United States, that means the pressure can come from different directions. A person may face a frozen benefit application, a review of past filings, or in some cases the loss of a visa or green card that had already been approved.

The policy also narrows the space between immigration administration and foreign policy. By invoking INA Section 212(a)(3)(C) against people deemed a “foreign-policy risk,” the administration has tied residence rights more directly to Washington’s confrontation with Tehran.

Supporters inside the administration present that as a security measure during wartime. The official statements argue that the U.S. should not remain a refuge for people linked to a government Washington accuses of supporting anti-American activity.

The breadth of the shift is evident. The administration has moved from restricting future arrivals to revisiting present status, from screening new applicants to reopening old decisions, and from targeting unnamed categories to identifying individuals in public.

That makes the current campaign different in both reach and method. It is not limited to border controls, and it does not stop with new visa denials.

Instead, it reaches into campuses, workplaces and households where Iranians have lived with legal status, while the White House presses its confrontation with Tehran under an April 7, 2026, 8:00 PM ET deadline that binds immigration enforcement to the wider conflict.