Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. has revoked over 300 visas amid a government crackdown on immigrants expressing their political views.
Rubio said the visas revoked are primarily for students, but some visitor visas have also been revoked in recent weeks. He said some visas have been revoked due to criminal activity and not due to protests.
Rubio's acknowledgment of the visa revocations comes after the detainment of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who expressed support for Palestinian causes. She is subject to removal from the U.S. after attending Tufts University as a doctoral student.
The Associated Press reported that U.S. officials claimed Ozturk was a supporter of Hamas. Friends of the Tufts University student said she did not attend protests and her only known activism was an op-ed she wrote for a student newspaper challenging the university to cut its ties with Israel.
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Her potential deportation, among others, has raised questions about what sort of free speech rights those with student visas have in the U.S. Rubio seemed to suggest that immigrants in the U.S. on a student visa have limited free speech rights.
"I don’t care what movement you’re involved in," Rubio said. "Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we’ve given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away."
Rubio said there would be some forms of protests the administration would not object to, but added that being involved in movements that riot or take over buildings would subject someone to having their visa removed.
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"No one has a right to a visa," he said. "These are things that we decide. We deny visas every day for all kinds of reasons all over the world. We deny visas because we think people might overstay. We deny visas because the country they come from has people that historically overstay. We deny visas every day, and we can revoke visas. If you have the power to deny, you have the power to revoke."
The American Association of University Professors has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent officials from arresting or deporting students involved in legal protests.
“The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won't stop there. They'll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming health care or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together—as the old labor movement slogan says: an injury to one is an injury to all,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson said.
