More Than 100K Visas Revoked After Trump Immigration Order, DOJ Attorney Says

ALEXANDRIA, VA — An attorney for the U.S. Justice Department told a Virginia court on Friday that more than 100,000 visas have been revoked as a result of President Trump's executive order on immigration, according to multiple reports from inside the courtroom, contradicting figures previously stated by the White House and numbers released by the State Department on Friday.

The federal court is hearing a case brought by two Yemeni people who were stopped at Dulles International Airport and put on a return flight on Saturday. The attorney's statement came after a question from the judge about how many people have been affected by the order.

After word circulated of the government's statements, the State Department said that fewer than 60,000 visas had been "provisionally revoked" as a result of the order.

"We recognize that those individuals are temporarily inconvenienced while we conduct our review under the Executive Order," the State Department's statement said, according to NBC News. "To put that number in context, we issued over 11 million immigrant and non-immigrant visas in fiscal year 2015. As always, national security is our top priority when issuing visas."

The White House has said that only 109 people were affected by the new restrictions in the first 24 hours after the order was put in place.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday afternoon that he wasn't sure if that includes people currently in the United States and whether they would be deported.

This story will be updated.

Image via J Aaron Farr, Flickr, used under Creative Commons