International college students see F-1 visas canceled in the new Trump administration tactic

Washington (AP) – A repression against foreign students is alarming colleges, who say that the Trump administration uses new tactics and waves justifications to push certain students outside the country.

College officials fear that the new approach will prevent foreigners from want in the United States

Students stripped of their entry visas receive orders from the Ministry of Internal Security to leave the country immediately – a break in past cabinets which have often allowed them to stay and finish their studies.

Some students were targeted Pro-Palestinian activism or criminal offenses – or even traffic violations. Others wondered how they went against the government.

At Minnesota State University in Mankato, President Edward Inch told campus on Wednesday that visas had been dismissed for five international students for unclear reasons.

He said that school officials learned of the revocations when they were carrying out status control in a database of international students after detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The State Department declared that detention was linked to a state of drunkenness.

“These are disturbing times, and this situation is different from what we have already sailed,” wrote Inch in a letter to the campus.

President Donald Trump Fample on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and federal agents began by holding students from Columbia Mahmoud KhalilA green card and a Palestinian activist who was in view of the demonstrations in Columbia last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that last week, students were intended for participation in demonstrations as well as other linked to “potential criminal activity”.

Over the past two weeks, the government has apparently expanded its repression. College officials across the country have discovered that international students have seen their entry visa revoked and, in many cases, their status of legal residence terminated by the authorities without notice – including students from Arizona State, Cornell, Caroline du Nord, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas and the University of Colorado.

Some students work to leave the country alone, but tufts students and the University of Alabama were detained by the immigration authorities – in the TUFTS case, even Before the university knows The student’s legal status had changed.

Feds go around colleges to move against students

In this new wave of application, school officials say that the federal government is quietly removing the files of foreigners’ students instead of going through colleges, as has been done in the past.

Students are condemned to leave the country with suddenness that universities have rarely seen, said Miriam Feldblum, president and chief executive officer of the Alliance of Presidents on Higher Education and Immigration.

In the past, when international students have revoked entry visas, they have generally been authorized to maintain legal residence status. They could stay in the country to study, but should renew their visa if they left the United States and wanted to return. Now, an increasing number of students have their legal status terminated, exposing them to the risk of being arrested.

“None of this is a regular practice,” said Feldblum.

At North Carolina State University, two students from Saudi Arabia left the United States after learning of its legal status as a student at the end, the university said. NC State said he would work with students to finish their semester from outside the country.

Philip Vasto, who lived with one of the students, said that his roommate, at the Higher School for Engineering Management, was apolitical and had not attended demonstrations against war in Gaza. When the government told its roommate that its student status had been terminated, that did not give a reason, said Vasto.

Since his return to Saudi Arabia, Vasto has declared that his former roommate was to embark on another university.

“He made his peace with that,” he said. “He does not want to allow him to steal his peace more.”

The database checks reveal the students in Jeopardy

At the University of Texas in Austin, the staff checking a federal database discovered that two people on student visas had permission to be at the end of the United States, said a person familiar with the situation. The person refused to be identified for fear of reprisals.

One of the people, from India, saw their legal status dismissed on April 3. The federal system indicated that the person had been identified in a verification of the judicial lockers “and / or has revoked their visa”. The other person, from Lebanon, has terminated their legal status on March 28 due to a verification of legal lockers, according to the federal database.

The two people were graduates remaining in the United States on student visas, using an option allowing people to acquire professional experience after taking courses. The two were employed full -time and apparently had not violated the requirements to pursue work experience, said the person familiar with the situation.

Some students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law prohibiting non-citizens whose presence could have “serious consequences unfavorable to foreign policy”. Trump invoked the law in an order of January demanding an action against the anti -Semitism of the campus.

But some students targeted in recent weeks have had no clear connection with political activism. Some have been ordered to leave for crime of crime or traffic offenses, said Feldblum. In some cases, students were intended for offenses which had previously been reported to the government.

Some of the alleged offenses do not have a meticulous examination in the past and will probably be a test for students’ rights to the first amendments to students while business occurs in court, said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Policy Institute migration.

“In some ways, what the administration is doing is really retroactive,” she said. “Rather than saying:” It will be the standard that we apply in the future “, they return and check students according to past expressions or past behavior.”

The association of public universities and land concessions requests a meeting with the State Department on the issue. We do not know if more visas are dismissed only, but those responsible fear a scary effect on international exchanges.

Many members of the association have recently seen at least one student dismiss their visas, said Bernie Burrola, vice-president of the group. With little government information, colleges interviewed students or searches social media for a link with political activism.

“Universities do not seem to find anything that seems to be linked to Gaza or to publications or demonstrations on social networks,” said Burrola. “Some of them are students sponsored by foreign governments, where they specifically hesitate to get involved in demonstrations.”

There is no clear thread indicating which students are targeted, but some came from the Middle East and China, he said.

American universities have long been considered a higher destination for the most brilliant minds in the world – and they have brought significant income and research to American colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.

“We should not hold for that it is exactly the way things are and will always be,” she said.

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The editors of the Associated Press Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.