Some students report having their visa revoked over an offense as minor as a speeding ticket. "The government seems to be revoking visas and arresting and deporting students based on interactions that are too minor to have been of any interest in the past," Ahilan T. Arulanantham, Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law, told The Los Angeles Times. "People with a reckless driving ticket and who then completed the driver's training, for example. In some cases I have seen, there is not even a criminal charge or arrest, but only a citation."
With no word from the Trump administration, international students across the country have taken to creating a data sheet to self-report their visa revocations. According to reporting by The Guardian, students at over 50 universities across the US reported that their student visas were canceled around April 4.
The recent wave of visa revocations have impacted students at several major institutions in California: UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and Stanford, among others. International students at several other universities have also seen their visas revoked by the Trump administration, including at Arizona State University, Harvard University, Columbia University, the University of Tennessee, among others.
Last month, Marco Rubio bragged at a press conference that he had revoked the visas of over 300 international students, specifically for pro-Palestine protest activity. "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 visa," Rubio said at the press conference, which took place in Guyana on March 27.
This recent wave of visa revocations has also renewed alarm about the State Department's "Catch and Revoke" program. The controversial approach uses AI to scour the social media of visa holders, determining whether they show support for US-designated terrorist groups such as Hamas, which the Trump administration has used as an excuse to crack down on pro-Palestine protests. According to Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center for Justice, such a program would be prone to "rudimentary mistakes."
There is broad concern that the Trump administration is using social media to target pro-Palestine students. Journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on March 28 that he had obtained a "sensitive" State Department directive, issued by Marco Rubio, which enforces a "social media review" of new and returning student visa applicants for evidence of "advocating for, sympathizing with, or persuading others to endorse or espouse terrorist activities or support" for terrorist organizations. Specific reference is made in the document to students who participate in "pro-Hamas events," which is how Rubio and other Trump administration officials have referred to pro-Palestine protests.
Lawyers for some of the students who have filed lawsuits against the federal government say their visas were revoked suddenly, without any warning and without recourse for appeal or corrections.
Rubio has said that student visas are for studying and warned they would be revoked if foreigners were seen as engaging in "destabilizing" acts.
In a transcript released by the US State Department, Rubio said "it might be more" than 300 visas that have been revoked.
"I don't know actually if it's primarily student visas. It's a combination of visas," he told reporters.
Those affected have predominantly been involved in pro-Palestinian protests, he said, but have also included some who have prior criminal charges.
A Turkish citizen and University of Minnesota student was detained in March after his visa was revoked for a prior drunk driving infraction, according to the BBC's media partner CBS News.
Other reports show students have had their visas revoked after they were found to have prior speeding tickets.
Faculty members and rights advocates have expressed concern about students' ability to share their opinions without risking their legal status.
"No president should be allowed to set an ideological litmus test and exclude or remove people from our country who they disagree with," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a statement.
The White House has defended its actions using a provision of a 1952 law that grants the secretary of state broad authority to expel foreigners believed to pose "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US.
Inside Higher Ed tracker identifies more than 80 colleges and universities where international students and recent graduates have had their legal status changed by the State Department.
It lists major public universities with tens-of-thousands of students like Texas A&M University, University of Oregon, University of Florida and University of Colorado.
It also includes smaller private institutions like Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University and Stanford University.
Federal authorities revoked visas of at least eight students at Arizona State University and at least six people at the University of California Berkeley, according to the Washington Post.
At least 57 visas have been revoked from across the entire University of California system, according to the Wall Street Journal, and seven at Ohio State University.
There are roughly 1.1 million international student visa-holders in the US.
Multiple students and faculty have been detained, including those on student visas and at least one permanent legal US resident.
Once in custody, they have been sent to detention centres across the US where they await deportation.
Video footage of some of the arrests shows plain-clothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers approaching confused and frightened students, before they are placed in the back of unmarked cars.
Some of those detained have alleged they were arrested without explanation and say they have committed no crimes.
One of the most high profile cases involves Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident who was arrested in his university-owned home in March.
The other case to capture national attention involves Tufts University student and Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk.
Footage of Ms Ozturk's detainment shows her shaking in fear as she is encircled by six plain-clothes ICE agents wearing masks who stopped her on the street as she was headed to a Ramadan celebration.
Rasha Alawieh, a Brown University professor and kidney transplant specialist, was deported after arriving at Boston airport.
US officials said they found "photos and videos" on her cell phone that were "sympathetic" to Hezbollah.At least two students who had their visas revoked have fled to Canada, including Momodou Taal and Ranjani Srinivasan.
Several students have sued the government to challenge their visa revocations and detainment amid a bid to delay or block their deportation.
They allege that they have been arrested and detained without cause or explanation, a possible violation of their civil rights.One example includes Xiaotian Liu, a 26-year-old doctoral student from China who studies at Dartmouth College.
Mr Liu is suing the government along with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, alleging that his visa has been revoked "without any notice and sufficient explanation". Mr Liu has not committed any crimes or participated in any protests, according to the lawsuit.
