[Bye activists...] Trump takes aim at foreign-born college students, with 300 visas revoked

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-administration-takes-aim-
immigrant-students-rcna198346

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday the State Department has 
revoked 300 or more student visas, as the White House increasingly targets 
foreign-born students whose main transgression seems to be activism.

Rubio warned that the administration was looking out for “these lunatics.” 
Around the country, scholars have been picked up, in some cases by masked 
immigration agents, and held in detention centers, sometimes a thousand 
miles from their homes with little warning and often with few details 
about why they were being detained.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I 
find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said at a news 
conference in Guyana, where he was meeting with leaders. 

Many of those rounded up by Trump officials attended or were part of the 
pro-Palestinian movement that swept college campuses last year, and while 
the administration hasn’t said publicly why these students are being 
singled out over others, at least one sought by U.S. Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement appeared on lists made by far-right pro-Israel groups 
as targets for deportation. 

And Trump allies, many in government again, telegraphed for months before 
he took office that they’d seek to deport students who openly advocated 
for Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist groups or after they 
participated in an unauthorized campus protest and were suspended, 
expelled or jailed.

The detentions are a signal of a broader effort by President Donald Trump 
to clamp down on the actions of legal permanent residents, student visa 
holders and others who live and work legally in the United States, one 
that threatens to undermine a fundamental American right to free speech 
and to assemble, experts and advocates said. 

“There’s something uniquely disturbing about sending a message to the best 
and the brightest around the world, who traditionally have flocked to U.S. 
universities because of their openness, because of their freedom, because 
of their intellectual vigor, and now say, ‘We don’t want you here,’” said 
Ben Wizner, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, 
Privacy, and Technology Project.

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, has repeatedly said the administration’s 
deportation policy is “worst first,” meaning it is prioritizing removing 
people with criminal records or people suspected of being national 
security threats. According to the Department of Homeland Security data, 
there are at least 400,000 noncitizens convicted of crimes in the United 
States. The administration has sent more than 200 Venezuelans to a 
maximum-security prison in El Salvador, alleging that the migrants have 
gang ties, claims that families and attorneys of some of those deported 
have strongly denied. 

Targeting students is a shift from their stated goal of going after 
criminals, said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst with the U.S. 
Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, a 
nonpartisan think tank. 

Bush-Joseph said that for noncitizens, “the government has so much 
discretion when it comes to granting or taking away immigration benefits, 
and that can be done based on a number of reasons.”

The State Department has used as justification for some student 
deportation proceedings an immigration provision that dates to the Cold 
War and gives Rubio the authority to deport noncitizens if their  
activities pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” 
And U.S. officials can revoke a student visa if they deem the student a 
threat.

Some scholars have already been deported. And arrests continue. Just this 
week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested two students near their 
homes. One was Alireza Doroudi, a doctoral student from Iran studying at 
the University of Alabama. ICE didn’t immediately respond to a request for 
comment about Doroudi’s immigration status or why he was arrested. The 
University said a doctoral student had been detained but gave no other 
details.

Another was Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish 
national who was in the United States with a valid student visa and pulled 
off the street.

Ozturk co-authored an opinion essay in the Tufts student newspaper last 
year criticizing the university for how it responded to student demands, 
calling for the school to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and 
“divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” The essay, 
which was authored by four students and endorsed by 32 others, does not 
mention Hamas.

In response to questions about Ozturk’s arrest, Rubio questioned why “any 
country in the world” would allow people to come into their countries and 
disrupt college campuses. 

“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to be a social 
activist that comes in and tears up our university campuses,” he said. 

“If you invite me into your home because I say, ‘Oh, I want to go to your 
house for dinner,’ and I come into 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 said.

Ozturk is being held at a Louisiana detention facility. It’s not clear 
where Doroudi has been sent, and little is known about his case.

The National Iranian American Council demanded information on Doroudi’s 
whereabouts and whether he’d been charged with a crime and called for 
those “unjustly detained” to be released.

“Doroudi’s arrest comes on the heels of the baseless arrest of students 
and a green card holder as apparent retaliation against their speech and 
activism against war,” the group said.

Meanwhile, one far-right group has compiled names and other identifying 
information of students and professionals — both noncitizens and U.S. 
citizens — who are alleged to be “promoting hatred of the USA, Israel and 
Jews on college campuses,” saying its goal is to combat antisemitism on 
campuses. Another group says it handed the Trump administration a list of 
hundreds of names for deportation; at least one of the students listed on 
both sites, Momodou Taal, has been targeted by the Trump administration 
for deportation and asked to surrender to ICE. Taal, a Ph.D. student who 
is a U.S. visa holder, participated in protests at Cornell University 
expressing support for Palestinians in Gaza. 

Among the other students targeted by the Trump administration:

— Yunseo Chung, 21, a Columbia University student who took part in the 
protests. She is a legal permanent resident and doesn’t need a student 
visa; she moved to the United States as a child from South Korea. She is 
fighting deportation in court, and last week, a federal judge ruled that 
she can’t be detained as the legal case continues. 

— Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian student who participated in the protests at 
Columbia last spring. Immigration officials say she had overstayed her 
student visa and was arrested by ICE. 

— Badar Khan Suri, a graduate student from India who was teaching at 
Georgetown University on a student visa when he was arrested this month. 
Suri filed a court petition in Alexandria, Virginia, in hope of being 
released from detention. He is being held at the Prairieland Detention 
Center in Alvarado, Texas, according to the ICE detainee locator. Homeland 
Security officials said on X he was “actively spreading Hamas propaganda 
and promoting antisemitism on social media.”

— Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and Columbia University graduate 
student who was detained over his pro-Palestinian activism on campus, 
immigration officials said. He’s being held at the Central Louisiana ICE 
Processing Facility in Jena. A federal judge in New York recently ruled 
that a challenge to his arrest and detention should be heard in New 
Jersey. The judge issued an order blocking the government from deporting 
Khalil as his case proceeds. He also faces a separate deportation case in 
immigration court in Louisiana, with his next hearing set for early April. 

Samah Sisay, one of Khalil’s lawyers, said lawyers and advocates are 
concerned that more students will be targeted and that many may also face 
criminal charges for their activism if government officials cite potential 
terrorism concerns.

“None of them have criminal records,” Sisay said. “This is an attack on 
speech, and I think any sort of criminal allegations that may be brought 
in the future would still be attached to this desire to chill free speech 
and to really say that certain speech is not welcomed under this 
administration and can lead to you being criminalized, detained, and 
deported.”

And it’s increasingly unclear whether colleges will support students in 
the face of growing efforts to deport students who speak out. Just last 
week, Columbia University bowed to Trump’s demands after he threatened to 
cancel $400 million in federal research grants for “inaction in the face 
of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The university agreed to 
sweeping changes.  

Ranjani Srinavasan, a Columbia University doctoral student from India, 
isn’t detained by ICE, because she left for Canada, instead. 

She told NBC News she got a message on March 5 from the U.S. consulate in 
Chennai, India, that her student visa had been revoked. She said she had 
participated in some protests. On the night of a large demonstration where 
students occupied Hamilton Hall, she had been trying to get to her dorm 
and was among the dozens swept up by police, but the charges were late 
dropped, her lawyer said.

Two days later, ICE agents turned up at her apartment, but another person 
in the apartment with her didn’t let them in because they didn’t have a 
warrant, Srinavasan said. The agents returned the next day, and again were 
not let inside. Then, Srinavasan got a message from the international 
student office saying that her visa had been revoked and that she had to 
leave the United States and the school. 

Until then, she had been grading papers as a teaching assistant and 
finishing out the last six months in her five-year Ph.D. program.

“If I had opened the door,” Srinivasan said. “I would be in a detention 
center now.”  


-- 
November 5, 2024 - Congratulations President Donald Trump.  We look 
forward to America being great again.

The disease known as Kamala Harris has been effectively treated and 
eradicated.

We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.