Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free

Your guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world

The US embassy in London is barring top-level business executives from traveling to America for minor criminal offences, as Donald Trump’s clampdown on immigration extends to the UK.

People looking to travel to the U.S. on tourist and business visas with police cautions or minor violations on their records — some dating back to the 1970s — are routinely turned away, according to immigration lawyers and visa consultants.

Lawyers said the tech and C-suite executives were among those denied visas apparently based on relatively minor, historical offenses such as cannabis use, bar fights and driving under the influence of alcohol, in a sign of how far anti-immigration drives have gone in the US. Some of those denied visas have arrests on their records but not convictions.

The embassy in London refused visas under the so-called 214(b) rule – a catch-all category that allows consular offices to refuse travel because a person “does not adequately demonstrate” that they are eligible, without giving a reason. Some clients received visa denials after indications they would be approved, lawyers said.

They said this procedure began last summer after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “catch-and-revoke” policy aimed at revoking visas from any alien caught breaking the law. Such denials were especially rare before Trump’s second term began in January last year, lawyers said.

London is the largest visa post for the US in Europe, with more than 150,000 non-immigrant visas issued by the embassy by 2024according to the latest data from the US Department of State. Anyone who does not qualify for an Esta – an automatic 90-day travel permit available to citizens of countries such as the UK – must apply for a visa through their local embassy.

Nationals from countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil cannot travel to Estonia so must apply through embassies. People from eligible countries who have a criminal record – including arrests and cautions without charge – also cannot be guaranteed in Estas if the violations are related to certain activities including drug use.

“In our experience, anyone with criminal irregularity – no matter how minor – is unlikely to get a visitor visa, and in some cases even a work visa, from London today,” said Christi Jackson, head of the US practice at Laura Devine Immigration in London. “We tell clients who have visas that they need to take care of their lives.”

One lawyer said they are now turning away clients with any criminal history, telling them the US does not issue visitor or business visas to such applicants.

Another lawyer said they were able to get visas approved for a while last year by sending them to other embassies, suggesting the issue is London-specific, but the administration has since restricted those routes.

The embassy also stopped publishing the monthly table of the number of visas it issued in June last year.

“The most surprising aspect of this is that people who were previously granted visas, with the same history, are now being refused,” said Steven Heller, a US immigration lawyer in the UK.

The US State Department said: “The Trump administration upholds the highest standards of national security and public safety through the visa process … (the US) will not tolerate foreign visitors who violate our laws.”

Trump’s crackdown on immigration has come to a head in recent weeks after federal agents fatally shot a nurse, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, the second US citizen shot and killed by federal agents in the city this year. The deaths sparked a wave of protests across the country and forced the president to soften his rhetoric on the issue.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are deployed across America to sweep up undocumented aliens, often backed by National Guard troops.

International travel to the US has sunk in the past year since Trump came to power. The number of foreign visitors traveling to the US in 2025 will decrease 4.2 percent – the first annual decline since the Covid-19 pandemic. In contrast, international travel worldwide increased by 4 percent.

“The US is a big financial center in the world and people have to go there for business,” said Paul Samartin, a US immigration lawyer in London who represents high-net-worth individuals. “This is a problem.”