The Department of Homeland Security has pulled the plug on a Biden-era program that let Chinese nationals land in a United States territory without a visa, and the reasons the administration is giving are raising eyebrows well beyond the Pacific.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is suspending the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Vitality and Security Travel Authorization Program, known as EVS-TAP. The notice was filed Monday and published in the Federal Register on Tuesday.
The suspension takes effect Friday, October 30. After that date, Chinese citizens who want to visit Saipan, Tinian or Rota will need the same visitor visa that is required to visit Honolulu or any other part of the United States.
For years, the Northern Marianas were the only place under the American flag where Chinese nationals could arrive without a visa and stay for up to 14 days. Republicans in Congress spent years calling that a loophole, and now the administration has moved to close it.
The arrangement dates back to around 2009, when a discretionary parole policy first allowed Chinese visitors into the islands to support the local tourism economy. The Biden administration later replaced parole with an automated pre-screening system, EVS-TAP, which took over in 2025.
Homeland Security says the numbers alone became a problem. More than 3,000 Chinese nationals entered the islands through the program in fiscal year 2025, and the department concluded that the volume of visa-free entries posed unacceptable security and law enforcement risks.
Then there is the issue of birth tourism. The department said visa-free travel can make it easier for people to travel to the islands to give birth so that their child can claim American citizenship. Lawmakers have pointed to reports that births to visiting Chinese mothers jumped from fewer than ten in 2009 to nearly 600 by 2018.
Officials also pointed to human smuggling. DHS cited two cases in which Chinese nationals were sentenced for smuggling other Chinese nationals from the Northern Mariana Islands to Guam, an island that hosts major American military installations.
That geography is no small detail. The Marianas sit in the western Pacific, where Washington has been strengthening its military presence, and security-minded lawmakers have argued that an open door for nationals of a strategic rival so close to those bases was an invitation to trouble. Espionage concerns have been part of the administration’s reasoning as well.
This did not happen overnight. Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany wrote to DHS in early 2025 urging the department to rescind the policy, warning of national security, public safety and immigration fraud concerns.
This April, Senators Mike Lee, Rick Scott, John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy joined the push, urging the administration to close what they called a Chinese visa loophole in U.S. territories. They warned that the program posed national security threats and encouraged drug trafficking and birth tourism.
Under the notice, Chinese visitors who were already admitted and are legally in the islands when the suspension begins may remain for the rest of their authorized stay. They will need a visa for any future trip, and existing travel authorizations are cancelled.
The notice covers only EVS-TAP. It does not address Hong Kong passport holders, who travel under the broader Guam-CNMI Visa Waiver Program. Senators Rick Scott and Jim Banks have asked DHS to drop Hong Kong from that program too, so that question is wide open.
Economics is where the pushback will come from. The islands lean heavily on tourism, and one analysis noted that the suspension arrives just as China had become the islands’ largest tourist market again. Hotel owners, airlines and tour operators will feel it.
The islands’ congressional delegate, Kimberlyn King-Hinds, has pressed federal officials to lift restrictions on scheduled air service between the Northern Marianas and China, which shows how badly local leaders want those connections.
Supporters of the suspension answer that no economy is worth a hole in the border. Their argument is simple: a country decides who comes in, and a program that lets citizens of a strategic competitor enter American soil without a visa, near critical military bases, is not one any serious government should keep.
The move also fits a broader push by the administration. Birthright citizenship has been a target of the Trump White House, and immigration enforcement concerns were central to the reasoning DHS laid out here.
