4 hours ago
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Security
Policy targets online scammers, sextortionists, and potentially their immediate families
Marco Rubio says the US will deny visas to foreign nationals involved in cybercrime and may extend the restrictions to their immediate families.
The US secretary of state announced the restrictions on Thursday, citing a rise in overseas investment scams "often orchestrated by Chinese transnational criminal organizations."
Rubio said that in 2024, scammers defrauded US citizens of more than $10 billion, and additionally preyed on children through sextortion schemes that can "devastate families and futures."
"The Trump Administration is deploying every tool at our disposal – sanctions, prosecutions, asset seizures, extradition requests, and international law enforcement cooperation – to dismantle criminal scam networks and impose costs on those who enable them," he said.
"By restricting visa issuance to those who are responsible for or complicit in these criminal enterprises, we are sending a clear message: The United States will go after those who prey on our citizens."
Chinese gangs, Southeast Asian compounds
Rubio singled out Chinese transnational criminal organizations, but that does not mean the scams are necessarily being run from China.
The FBI's most recent annual report [PDF] says cryptocurrency investment scams are largely perpetrated by organized criminal enterprises based in Southeast Asia, often using people trafficked to scam compounds. The same report says US investigators are pursuing Chinese organized crime affiliates operating in Cambodia, Laos, and Burma.
Financially motivated sextortion has a somewhat different geographic footprint. According to FBI guidance, perpetrators are usually based in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ivory Coast, or Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines.
The FBI's evidence shows how such networks can operate across borders, running scam centers in one country while recruiting or trafficking workers from others.
The policy uses authority provided by Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and will apply primarily to those "responsible for, or complicit in, cybercrime and cyber-enabled crime." It may also extend to immediate family members, Rubio said.
Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the INA already imposes restrictions on individuals seeking visas when their entry or proposed activity could lead to "serious adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US.
Rubio is no stranger to invoking the same provision as the basis for new visa restrictions. In May 2025, for example, the secretary of state announced restrictions for foreign officials who take steps to restrict US citizens' freedom of expression, be that through threats of arrest for social media posts, or demands for US platforms to adopt content moderation policies.
Earlier, in March 2025, Rubio announced a policy targeting private sector workers who facilitated illegal immigration. In September, he invoked the provision again to impose restrictions on Central Americans accused of helping the Chinese Communist Party undermine the rule of law in the region.
The Biden administration used the same authority in 2021 to establish what became known as the Khashoggi Ban, a visa restriction policy targeting people acting on behalf of foreign governments to suppress or harm dissidents. It followed the Saudi government's murder of journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi.
The US already has other ways to deny entry to convicted cybercriminals. Section 212(a)(2) of the INA, for example, can make foreign nationals ineligible for visas over convictions for crimes involving moral turpitude, a category that can include offenses such as fraud. ®
English (US) ·