The United States has warned China it could tighten visa and travel rules, accusing Beijing of slowing cooperation on sending back Chinese nationals living in the country without authorization, according to a senior U.S. official. The warning lands just days before President Trump’s planned May 14-15 summit in Beijing, where deportations are expected to be a key item on the agenda. U.S. officials say Chinese cooperation dipped after a brief burst of repatriations earlier last year, a slowdown they say is now snarling efforts to remove people with final deportation orders.
According to Reuters, a senior official said China accepted about 3,000 deportees on charter and commercial flights in early 2025 but has "scaled back cooperation" over the last six months. The official told Reuters there are now more than 100,000 undocumented Chinese nationals in the United States, including more than 30,000 with final orders of removal and roughly 1,500 in detention awaiting deportation. Policymakers are signaling they could respond by denying more visas, raising cash bonds tied to visa applications, and ramping up entry denials at the border if Beijing does not change course.
Numbers and context
Independent estimates do not line up exactly with the administration’s tally. The Migration Policy Institute estimated that about 239,000 Chinese immigrants were unauthorized as of mid-2022 and documented sharp increases in U.S. border encounters with Chinese nationals in 2023-24, a shift that helps explain the growing removal backlog. Long waits for travel document verification and immigration court delays mean government removal figures and academic estimates can diverge, even when they are tracking the same basic trend.
How visa sanctions work
The administration is pointing to Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act as its pressure tool. If the Homeland Security secretary notifies the State Department that a country is not cooperating on deportations, the State Department can impose visa restrictions on that country’s nationals, as outlined by ICE. The United States has used such visa sanctions before to push so-called "recalcitrant" countries, but the move can also snarl consular work and hit ordinary travelers and students who have nothing to do with the policy fight.
What Washington is demanding
U.S. officials say they want Beijing to speed up issuing travel documents and sign off on Customs and Border Protection charter flights, which would be funded by the U.S. government, so deportations can move ahead, Reuters reports. U.S. law-enforcement sources also told Reuters they sometimes see Chinese authorities link cooperation on repatriation to requests for the United States to extradite economic or political fugitives, a tactic Washington views as unacceptable leverage.
What to watch next
All eyes now turn to mid-May and whether Washington actually triggers formal 243(d) visa measures, and how Beijing responds if it does. China could answer with its own travel or diplomatic steps. The timing, landing right before the Trump-Xi summit, suggests U.S. officials are trying to gain last-minute leverage for quick concessions. It also raises the risk of blowback that could hit students, business travelers, and families on both sides of the Pacific who suddenly find themselves caught in the middle of a geopolitical visa brawl.
