Former citizenship chief urges Biden to halt Russian visas

Roughly 150,000 Russians in an average year enter the U.S. as students, academics, professional athletes, investors or, most commonly, as visitors on tourism or business trips.

With the stroke of a pen, President Biden and his team could shut down all of it.

As the U.S. searches for more leverage against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies in government and business, the immigration system offers a juicy target, experts say.

“This is a way of sealing Russia in,” Emilio Gonzalez, a former head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, told The Washington Times. “You can’t be invading countries and then expecting to travel to other countries on vacation. If they want to go on vacation, they should go to North Korea. I hear they have wonderful beaches.”

The State Department took a small step Thursday by moving to “restrict” visas that might be issued for 19 oligarchs and 47 of their relatives and associates.

The Biden administration also could take other actions.

Travel visas for senior military leaders or the Russian diplomatic corps could be restricted in the same way. Thousands of visas granted to students could be blocked, and those already in the U.S. could be canceled. So could visas for hundreds of Russian athletes or others in high-skill positions.

Hockey fans have flooded social media sites with speculation about the National Hockey League’s playoffs if Russian players’ visas are canceled.

The most enticing target for visa restrictions, Mr. Gonzales said, might be Russians seeking the investor visa, known as EB-5. The numbers aren’t big — about 60 people in 2019, the last full year before the COVID-19 pandemic — but each of them had to pay a half-million dollars or more in investment cash.

“No ordinary Russian can come up with $1 million of disposable income without being connected somehow to the government,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

The Biden administration has joined a worldwide effort to push Russia out of the international financial system, which has crippled the ruble.

Western companies also have struck. Apple pulled its products, Disney pulled its movies and Ikea shuttered stores.

On Capitol Hill, support for cutting off U.S. purchases of Russian oil is growing, even as the Biden administration fears political backlash from soaring prices at the pump.

“I think we need to target their energy sector. I really do,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican.

Several senators said they would like the U.S. to target real estate held by Russian oligarchs. Russians are looking to sell, but they can’t find American buyers because of sanctions.

Immigration experts said there is no question Mr. Biden has the power to block or revoke visas for Russian nationals, but targeting specific groups such as oligarchs and government officials is more likely.

Indeed, the State Department has taken that course of action by slapping visa sanctions on countries that refuse to cooperate in deportation cases.

“These are very easy targets,” said Rosemary Jenks, vice president at NumbersUSA. “If it puts pressure on Putin, great. If it doesn’t, you can restart the program when this is all over.”

The U.S. is the world’s premier economy, the top tourist destination and, by far, the top pick for foreign students. That gives the government options that aren’t available to some other countries.

As Mr. Gonzalez put it, “We’re a big country. We have a lot of things in our backpack we can use besides predators.”

In 2019, the government granted more than 140,000 temporary visitor visas to Russians for tourism or business, more than 5,000 to students and their families, and about 750 to top-level scientists, entertainers, athletes and their entourages.

The government granted more than 500 family-based immigrant visas and nearly 300 employment-based visas, including the 59 that went to wealthy investors in the EB-5 program.

Mr. Gonzalez said visa restrictions send a message and shut off a “safety valve” for well-connected Russians who want to send their children to the U.S. to study or to take jobs to keep them from being swept up in the war.

He said the U.S. doesn’t need to cancel the permits.

“You just put them all on hold — an indefinite hold on EB-5 visas from Russia, an indefinite hold on student visas, the J visa for Russian kids coming to work at Disney World,” he said.

In announcing the narrow set of sanctions against oligarchs last week, the State Department suggested it was willing to do more.

“We will continue to add names to this visa restriction policy as long as individuals continue to support and carry out destabilizing activity on behalf of the Kremlin,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.