Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the State Department may have already revoked more than 300 visas as the Trump administration pushes a sweeping immigration crackdown.
Federal immigration enforcement has turned to college campuses, where it is targeting those who have expressed pro-Palestinian views in a strategy First Amendment and immigration advocates say is stifling free speech.
A senior State Department official previously told Axios’ Marc Caputo that more than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked in the three weeks since Rubio’s “Catch and Revoke” program began operations.
“We do it every day,” Rubio said during a press conference in Guyana Thursday. “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”
It “might be more than 300 at this point,” he told reporters.
Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was detained by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this week and was quickly sent to a detention facility in Louisiana.
Ozturk, who was seen on video being arrested by agents without uniforms on a sidewalk, was not closely involved in the pro-Palestinian protests at the university, her friends and colleagues told the Associated Press.
Some reports have pointed to a March 2024 op-ed she co-authored in the student newspaper arguing against the school’s response to the pro-Palestinian movement.
Her detention follows that of Columbia University alumnus Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful U.S. permanent resident with a green card, and Georgetown University graduate student Badar Khan Suri.
Asked for specific action Ozturk took to prompt the revocation of her visa, Rubio replied with a “message” to visa applicants.
If the “reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in … vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa,” he replied.
“Once your visa is revoked, you’re illegally in the country and you have to leave,” he added.
The Trump administration is discussing plans to block colleges from having any foreign students if it concludes too many are “pro-Hamas,” senior officials told Caputo.
