Trump administration revokes visas, legal status of over 1,000 foreign students

The Trump administration, over the last few weeks, has revoked the visas or terminated the legal status of more than 1,000 international students, leaving them at a risk of detention and deportation, reported the Associated Press.

At least 1,024 students at 160 colleges and universities have had their visas revoked or their legal status cancelled in less than a month.

Several students have also filed lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), claiming that they were denied due process and that there was not adequate justification to snatch their right to be in the United States.

From private universities like Harvard and Stanford to public institutions such as the University of Maryland and Ohio State University, Donald Trump's crackdown on immigration and student activism has spared no one.

Earlier, this week, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported that the visas and immigration statuses of nine of their international students and researchers were revoked without any prior warning.

The Trump administration has additionally threatened universities with a freeze on funding if they do not comply with their directives on reducing student activism.

Harvard has already suffered from a freeze on $2.3 billion in federal funding, but has vowed that they will fight against the demands of the government.

Why are international students' visas being revoked?

After the Donald Trump administration detained Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil, the federal government had stated that it had the right to deport non-citizens who were participating in "antisemitic" pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

However, some colleges report that immigrant students have been singled out over minor infractions.

"The timing and uniformity of these terminations leave little question that DHS has adopted a nationwide policy, whether written or not, of mass termination of student (legal) status," ACLU of Michigan attorneys wrote, as quoted by AP.

"What you're seeing happening with international students is really a piece of the much greater scrutiny that the Trump administration is bringing to bear on immigrants of all different categories," said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.

Historically, even after a student's visa is revoked they could complete their studies as long as they did not leave the United States. However, the revocations also open up students to detainment by federal authorities such as ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement authority).

The lack of clarity of what is leading to revocations can create a sense of fear among students, said Sarah Spreitzer, the vice president of government relations at the American Council on Education.

"The very public actions that are being taken by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security around some of these students, where they are removing these students from their homes or from their streets, that's not usually done unless there is a security issue when a student visa is revoked. The threat of this very quick removal is something that's new," she said.