Student visas are now being revoked by the hundreds

The Trump administration is now cancelling the student visas of people it deems “lunatics,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week. “We do it every day,” Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana on Thursday. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”

A handful of students with green cards or visas have been detained in recent weeks and threatened with deportation for what the administration describes as pro-Palestinian activities on campus. Rubio confirmed that 300 or more student visas have been revoked in recent days; the administration will continue to target people who are “vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”

“I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to their universities as visitors and say ‘I’m going to your universities to start a riot,'” he said. “We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.”

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Rubio was asked about the detention of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University who was arrested on Tuesday after she wrote an op-ed about the Gaza war last year. In confirming her F1 visa had been revoked, he warned visa-seekers not to “lie to us” about their intentions for coming to study in the U.S.

“If you invite me into your home because you say, ‘I want to come to your house for dinner,’ and I go to 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 continued. “We’re going to do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us. We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country.”

Rubio was pressed on freedom of speech issues, specifically on whether students will lose visas if they speak out against government policies but don’t engage in violence or harassment. He responded that no one would get their visa yanked for protesting the use of “paper straws.”

“We’re going to err on the side of caution,” he asserted. “We are not going to be importing activists into the United States. They’re here to study. They’re here to go to class. They’re not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine our universities.”

The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association sued the administration last week over the arrests and detentions of students and faculty members who they argue have engaged in protected First Amendment activities.

“The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won’t stop there,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson contended. “They’ll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming health care or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices.”

The following article is a part of University Business’ ongoing coverage of President Donald J. Trump’s impact on higher education during his second term in office. Click here for the latest updates.