The Trump administration is considering attempting to stop some colleges from having any foreign students if it believes that too many of them are supportive of Hamas, according to Axios.
The endeavor is yet another attempt by the White House to take aggressive action on immigration and campus antisemitism, in what some view as an effort that suppresses free speech on college campuses.
The notion that colleges could be blocked from enrolling any holders of student visas came from Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “Catch and Revoke” program. It’s focusing on students who protested the war in Gaza and who they claim have backed Hamas.
A State Department official told Axios that in three weeks, more than 300 foreign students have had their student visas revoked. There are roughly 1.5 million student visa-holders across the country.
A top target for the effort is the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which certifies schools to enroll student visa-holders. Officials told Axios that institutions have previously lost their certifications if the government finds that too many of the student visa-holders are using the system to live and work in the U.S.
The Trump administration is now looking at the possibility of using that decertification process to take aim at schools that saw demonstrations following the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023, after Hamas attacked Israel.
“Every institution that has foreign students…will go through some sort of review,” an official told Axios. “You can have so many bad apples in one place that it leads to decertification of the school…I don’t think we’re at that point yet. But it is not an empty threat.”
Meanwhile, critics have slammed the administration for taking an ax to free speech and due process rights and for conflating supporting rights for Palestinians with supporting Hamas, the group in charge of Gaza.
The Trump administration’s actions on immigration have prompted several lawsuits and some may end up at the Supreme Court. However, that’s likely what the administration is aiming for — to give the top court several chances to expand the power of the executive branch to deport noncitizens, Axios noted.
On Tuesday, a judge temporarily blocked federal officials from arresting Yunseo Chung, a student at Columbia University in New York who took part in protests in support of Palestinians. The lawsuit she filed states that immigration enforcement cannot “be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express political views disfavored by the current administration.”
Mahmoud Khalil, an organizer of the protests at Columbia, brought the first case against Rubio’s right to revoke a green card earlier this month.
“That’s one of their biggest cash cows, foreign students. That’s a meaningful source of revenue for them,” a top Justice Department official told Axios.
“What you’re going to see in the not-too-distant future is the universities that we can show that were not doing anything to stop these demonstrations in support of Hamas — or encouraged enrollment by activists — … we can stop approving student visas for them, and they can no longer admit foreign students,” the official added.
“The way that this looks … is a grand jury subpoena goes to a university, a very broad subpoena,” the official said.
They added that it would include “any information that they know about students who have actively participated in violent protests.”
Columbia acceded to demands from the administration last week to take action to restrict protests and fight antisemitism to avoid losing $400 million in federal funds.
The new antisemitism task force at the Department of Justice started a civil rights investigation on March 5, looking into the University of California system.
Similarly, the Department of Education sent out letters to 60 universities on March 10, warning them that civil rights enforcement actions regarding antisemitism may be incoming.
