Trump administration revokes 300+ visas over campus activism

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, as the White House increasingly targets foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the State Department has revoked 300 or more student visas, as the White House increasingly targets foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism.

Rubio warned that the administration was looking out for “these lunatics.” Around the country, scholars have been picked up, in some cases by masked immigration agents, and held in detention centers, sometimes a thousand miles from their homes with little warning and often with few details about why they were being detained.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said at a news conference in Guyana, where he was meeting with leaders.

Many of those rounded up by Trump officials attended or were part of the pro-Palestinian movement that swept college campuses last year, and while the administration hasn’t said publicly why these students are being singled out over others, at least one sought by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appeared on lists made by far-right pro-Israel groups as targets for deportation.

And Trump allies, many in government again, telegraphed for months before he took office that they’d seek to deport students who openly advocated for Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist groups or after they participated in an unauthorized campus protest and were suspended, expelled or jailed.

The detentions are a signal of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to clamp down on the actions of legal permanent residents, student visa holders and others who live and work legally in the United States, one that threatens to undermine a fundamental American right to free speech and to assemble, experts and advocates said.

“There’s something uniquely disturbing about sending a message to the best and the brightest around the world, who traditionally have flocked to U.S. universities because of their openness, because of their freedom, because of their intellectual vigor, and now say, ‘We don’t want you here,’” said Ben Wizner, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has repeatedly said the administration’s deportation policy is “worst first,” meaning it is prioritizing removing people with criminal records or people suspected of being national security threats. According to the Department of Homeland Security data, there are at least 400,000 noncitizens convicted of crimes in the United States. The administration has sent more than 200 Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, alleging that the migrants have gang ties, claims that families and attorneys of some of those deported have strongly denied.

Targeting students is a shift from their stated goal of going after criminals, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Bush-Joseph said that for noncitizens, “the government has so much discretion when it comes to granting or taking away immigration benefits, and that can be done based on a number of reasons.”

The State Department has used as justification for some student deportation proceedings an immigration provision that dates to the Cold War and gives Rubio the authority to deport noncitizens if their activities pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” And U.S. officials can revoke a student visa if they deem the student a threat.

Some scholars have already been deported. And arrests continue. Just this week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested two students near their homes. One was Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying at the University of Alabama. ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Doroudi’s immigration status or why he was arrested. The University said a doctoral student had been detained but gave no other details.

Another was Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who was in the United States with a valid student visa and pulled off the street.

Ozturk co-authored an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper last year criticizing the university for how it responded to student demands, calling for the school to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” The essay, which was authored by four students and endorsed by 32 others, does not mention Hamas.

In response to questions about Ozturk’s arrest, Rubio questioned why “any country in the world” would allow people to come into their countries and disrupt college campuses.

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to be a social activist that comes in and tears up our university campuses,” he said.

“If you invite me into your home because I say, ‘Oh, I want to go to your house for dinner,’ and I come into your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, I bet you you’re going to kick me out,” Rubio said.

Ozturk is being held at a Louisiana detention facility. It’s not clear where Doroudi has been sent, and little is known about his case.

The National Iranian American Council demanded information on Doroudi’s whereabouts and whether he’d been charged with a crime and called for those “unjustly detained” to be released.

“Doroudi’s arrest comes on the heels of the baseless arrest of students and a green card holder as apparent retaliation against their speech and activism against war,” the group said.

Meanwhile, one far-right group has compiled names and other identifying information of students and professionals — both noncitizens and U.S. citizens — who are alleged to be “promoting hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on college campuses,” saying its goal is to combat antisemitism on campuses. Another group says it handed the Trump administration a list of hundreds of names for deportation; at least one of the students listed on both sites, Momodou Taal, has been targeted by the Trump administration for deportation and asked to surrender to ICE. Taal, a Ph.D. student who is a U.S. visa holder, participated in protests at Cornell University expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza.