Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the State Department has revoked more than 300 student visas, as the Trump administration continues to detain and deport pro-Palestinian student activists at universities across the country.
The wave of revocations is part of a larger push by the Trump administration to punish its perceived enemies or critics and crack down on higher education institutions that the president has lambasted as bastions of liberalism for years.
“Every time I find one of these lunatics I take away their visa,” Rubio told reporters at a press conference in Guyana. “Might be more than 300 at this point. Might be more. We do it every day.”
Rubio’s disclosure of hundreds of visas being pulled came as he responded to questions on Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University doctoral student and Fulbright scholar from Turkey who had her student visa revoked this week. A viral video reposted online by officials from the State Department showed Ozturk — who co-wrote an op-ed in a student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to the protests — being detained on the street by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement near the Tufts campus.
Rubio confirmed that Ozturk’s visa had been revoked. State Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted on X that an investigation found that Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”
“It’s just that simple. I think it’s crazy, I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to your universities as visitors, and say ‘I’m going to your universities to start a riot,’” Rubio said. “We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country.”
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in January empowering the State Department to revoke student visas and to deport “Hamas sympathizers,” saying that colleges across the country have been “infested with radicalism.”
The deportations gained national attention when Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested over his role in the university’s demonstrations last year. After his arrest and relocation to Louisiana, the Department of Homeland Security announced that two protestors from Columbia had their student visas revoked. A researcher at Georgetown, Badar Khan Suri, was also arrested and sent to Louisiana and has filed a lawsuit demanding release.
The arrests and deportations have been blasted by Democrats, who have increasingly questioned the legal basis for Rubio to enact these deportations and said they’re chilling free speech.
But Rubio said the State Department is not slowing down, adding they are “looking every day” for more visas to revoke.
“We’re just not gonna have it,” Rubio said. “So we’ll revoke your visa and once your visa is revoked you’re illegally in the country and you have to leave.”
