Marco Rubio says 300 scholar visas have been revoked, together with detentions at Tufts, Columbia and extra

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated Thursday that 300 scholar visas have been revoked, asserting “we’ve a proper” to rescind the visas of scholars who take part in campus protests, regardless of questions on due course of and First Modification objections. 

“In the event you apply for a visa to enter the US and be a scholar, and also you inform us that the rationale why you are coming to the US is not only since you wish to write op-eds, however since you wish to take part in actions which are concerned in doing issues like vandalizing universities, harassing college students, taking on buildings, making a ruckus, we’re not going to present you a visa,” Rubio stated. “In the event you mislead us and get a visa then enter the US, and with that visa, take part in that kind of exercise, we’ll take away your visa.” 

Rubio continued that if a scholar then misplaced his or her visa, “you are not legally in the US. And we’ve a proper, like each nation on this planet has a proper, to take away you from our nation.” 

Rubio stated that not less than 300 college students had their visas revoked. “We do it each day. Each time I discover considered one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” he stated. 

It is unclear if these college students have been notified of the revocations prematurely. 

Rubio’s remarks got here in response to a query about Tufts College graduate scholar Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish nationwide who was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Massachusetts on Tuesday. 

A Division of Homeland Safety spokesperson stated Ozturk had “engaged in actions in assist of Hamas,” however didn’t present particulars about her alleged actions. Ozturk was considered one of 4 college college students who was listed because the creator of a March 2024 campus newspaper opinion piece urging Tufts to undertake resolutions from the coed authorities to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from firms with direct or oblique ties to Israel.” That article doesn’t point out Hamas.

Ozturk is at present being held at a federal detention facility in Louisiana. 

The college stated in an announcement that she had been coming back from a Ramadan iftar dinner when she was detained. Surveillance video confirmed she was taken into custody by six ICE brokers who seem carrying masks and plain garments and driving unmarked automobiles.

A College of Alabama doctoral scholar initially from Iran was additionally taken into custody on Tuesday, in response to the college. A search of an ICE database confirmed the coed, Alireza Doroudi, was in custody. It was unclear as of Thursday why he was being detained or the place he was being held.

Each Ozturk and Doroudi have been within the U.S. on F-1 visas, which permit worldwide college students to enter the nation to check full-time at American universities. 

Labor unions representing college professors on Wednesday filed a lawsuit claiming the detentions of noncitizen college students and school is a violation of the First Modification, as is the menace to take away Columbia College’s $400 million in federal funds if the college didn’t make adjustments. 

The lawsuit cites President Trump’s March 4 publish on social media that these taking part in “unlawful protests” can be arrested, saying that “below First Modification doctrine, the class ‘unlawful protests’ is fastidiously circumscribed.”

“However, the publish didn’t say how federal officers would establish ‘unlawful protests’ or ‘agitators’ for functions of implementing the President’s acknowledged coverage, nor did it in any other case present steerage to college, college students, or directors looking for to train (or permit others to train) First Modification rights whereas avoiding the danger of imprisonment, deportation, expulsion, arrest, or lack of “[a]ll” federal funding,” the lawsuit claims. 

The high-profile detentions of Ozturk and Doroudi adopted the detention earlier this month of Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia College grad scholar who had been lively within the 2024 campus pro-Palestinian protests. Khalil is a Palestinian born in Syria with a inexperienced card, or authorized everlasting residency, not a scholar visa. Khalil’s lawyer, Amy Greer, stated on the time of his detention that an ICE agent stated they have been performing on a State Division order to revoke his scholar visa, however after they have been knowledgeable that Khalil was within the U.S. as a everlasting resident with a inexperienced card, the agent stated they have been revoking that, too.  

After he was taken into custody, the federal government stated it was invoking a not often used part of U.S. immigration legislation to justify Khalil’s detention and eventual deportation that enables the secretary of state to make noncitizens topic to deportation if he determines their presence and actions threaten the international coverage pursuits of the U.S., citing alleged assist for Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group. CBS Information has not discovered proof that Khalil has stated he helps Hamas. 

In a court docket submitting earlier this week, the federal government additionally alleged that Khalil did not disclose on his immigration varieties his involvement with UNRWA, the United Nations company for Palestine refugees; the Syria workplace of the British embassy in Beirut; and a bunch often called Columbia College Apartheid Divest.  

The federal government additionally stated within the submitting that claims by Khalil’s attorneys that his detention violated the First Modification have been a “purple herring.” 

Khalil is at present in custody in a federal detention facility in Louisiana. 

Rubio stated after Khalil was taken into custody that the administration can be revoking the visas and inexperienced playing cards “of Hamas supporters in America to allow them to be deported.” 

When requested on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” if Rubio may present proof to assist a hyperlink to terrorism, or whether or not Khalil was merely espousing a controversial political viewpoint, Rubio cited information footage, saying “these guys take over total buildings, they vandalize schools.”

Rubio stated Khalil is “going to depart — and so are others.” 

“We will preserve doing it,” Rubio stated about revoking visas. 

contributed to this report.