US cancels visas of 6,000 foreign students
(Web News)The State Department has revoked more than 6,000 student visas this year, a State Department official said Monday, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on some international students it says have broken the law.
The visas were revoked because people had stayed after their visas expired or broken the law, the official said, noting that the “vast majority” of those legal violations were for cases of assault, driving under the influence, burglary, and “support for terrorism.”
According to the official, approximately 4,000 of the 6,000 visas were revoked because the visa holders “broke the law.”
Approximately 200 to 300 of those visas were yanked for alleged terrorism under part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that says that foreign nationals may be inadmissible to the US “due to terrorist related activities.”
The thousands of revocations, first reported by Fox News, come as the Trump administration has undertaken aggressive actions towards universities and related to student visas.
Administration officials have particularly targeted international students active in protests against the war in Gaza, accusing those students of antisemitism and of supporting terrorism.
In one high profile case, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk’s visa was canceled, and she was seized by masked federal agents in March and put into ICE detention. A judge ordered her release in May.In June, the State Department told its embassies and consulates it must vet student visa applicants for “hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” Applicants will be asked to set their social media profiles to public as part of the vetting, and a diplomatic cable noted that “limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vigorously defended the Trump administration’s policies on student visa revocation.
