Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Thursday that 300 student visas have been revoked, emphasizing “we have a right” to rescind the visas of students involved in campus protests, despite concerns regarding due process and First Amendment rights.
Rubio elaborated, saying, “If you apply for a visa to enter the United States as a student and claim that your purpose is to engage in activities beyond academic study—such as participating in movements that vandalize universities, harass fellow students, take over buildings, and create chaos—we will not grant you a visa.” He added, “If you deceive us to obtain a visa, and then engage in such activities while in the U.S., we will revoke your visa.”
The Secretary further mentioned that if a student loses their visa, “you are no longer legally in the United States. And like every nation, we have the authority to remove you.”
Rubio confirmed that at least 300 students had their visas revoked, stating, “We do it every day. I revoke the visas of any of these individuals when I identify them,” he remarked.
It remains uncertain whether these students were notified prior to their visa revocations.
His comments were in response to inquiries about Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Massachusetts on Tuesday.
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security indicated that Ozturk had “engaged in activities supporting Hamas,” but did not provide specifics regarding her actions. Ozturk was one of the four authors of a March 2024 campus newspaper opinion piece advocating for Tufts to adopt student government resolutions to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies connected to Israel.” The article does not mention Hamas.
Currently, Ozturk is being held at a federal detention facility in Louisiana.
According to the university, she was detained while returning from a Ramadan iftar dinner, and surveillance video showed her being taken into custody by six ICE agents in masks and plain clothes driving unmarked vehicles.
A University of Alabama doctoral student from Iran was also detained on Tuesday, as reported by the university. A search of an ICE database confirmed that the student, Alireza Doroudi, was in custody. As of Thursday, it was unclear why he was detained or where he was being held.
Both Ozturk and Doroudi were in the U.S. on F-1 visas, allowing international students to study full-time at American universities.
Labor unions representing university professors filed a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging that the detention of noncitizen students and faculty violates the First Amendment, as does the threat to withdraw Columbia University’s $400 million in federal funding should the university fail to comply with certain changes.
The lawsuit references President Trump’s March 4 social media post claiming that individuals involved in “illegal protests” would be arrested, asserting that “under First Amendment doctrine, the category ‘illegal protests’ is strictly defined.”
According to the lawsuit, however, “the post did not articulate how federal officials would identify ‘illegal protests’ or ‘agitators’ for the purpose of implementing the President’s stated policy, nor did it provide guidance for faculty, students, or administrators aiming to exercise (or permit others to exercise) First Amendment rights without facing the risks of imprisonment, deportation, expulsion, arrest, or the loss of all federal funding.”
The recent high-profile detentions of Ozturk and Doroudi followed the earlier detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student involved in the 2024 campus pro-Palestinian protests. Khalil, a Palestinian born in Syria, holds a green card, not a student visa. Following his detention, Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer, stated that an ICE agent mentioned they were acting on a State Department directive to revoke his student visa, and when informed that Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card, the agent indicated that was being revoked as well.
The government later justified Khalil’s detention and potential deportation by invoking a rarely implemented section of U.S. immigration law that allows the Secretary of State to subject noncitizens to deportation if their presence and activities are seen as a threat to U.S. foreign policy interests, citing supposed support for Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. CBS News has not found evidence that Khalil has expressed support for Hamas.
In a court filing earlier this week, the government also asserted that Khalil failed to disclose on his immigration forms his connections with UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees; the Syria office of the British embassy in Beirut; and an initiative known as Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
The filing also dismissed claims from Khalil’s attorneys regarding First Amendment violations as a “red herring.”
Khalil currently remains in custody at a federal detention center in Louisiana.
Following Khalil’s detention, Rubio indicated that the administration would proceed to revoke the visas and green cards of “Hamas supporters in America for deportation.”
When questioned on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” about evidence linking Khalil to terrorism, or if he was merely expressing a contentious political viewpoint, Rubio referenced media footage, stating, “These individuals take over entire buildings and vandalize colleges.”
Rubio affirmed, “Khalil will leave—and so will others.”
“We will continue this practice,” he asserted regarding the revocation of visas.
