Nearly 60,000 individuals had their visas cancelled as a result of President Donald Trump’s immigration clampdown, the state department said on Friday.
The disclosure came shortly after Erez Reuveni, an immigration attorney with the Department of Justice, put the number at 100,000 during a Virginia court hearing over a petition by two Yemeni brothers who had been affected by the travel ban.
The rival estimates from different government departments added to confusion over the scope of Mr Trump’s order barring refugees and travellers from seven Muslim nations from entering the US. Both numbers discussed on Friday were far higher than the original figure that the administration used publicly or the numbers later released by the Department of Homeland Security.