Visas for foreign students at Rutgers revoked
Dozen informed amid "chilling' time at school
By: Mary Ann Koruth
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... Rutgers University is among several schools across the nation where foreign students have had their visas revoked by the Trump admin station without notice.
.....
The visa revocations were conducted "without explanation," Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway said in an email Sunday [04/06/2025] to the university community, in a move he said was "chilling to the international community.
..... About a dozen Rutgers students have learned in recent days that their visas are no longer valid.
..... The university is in touch with the affected students, Holloway said in his message. It is not known yet if any of these students were protesters who participated in pro-Gaza encampments on the Collage Avenue and Newark campuses last spring. [2024]
..... "the university deeply regarding travel bans and visa reviews by the federal government have cerated uncertainty and fear," the Rutgers president said.
..... "Here at Rutgers, as at other universities across the country, students who are in good academic standing have learned that there lawful status in the United States has been terminated without explanation.
..... Rutgers is connecting the affected students with the Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project at Rutgers Law School, which offers free and confidential legal consultations, university spokesperson Dory Devlin said in a statement.
..... The university followed with another email Tuesday [04/08/2025] saying the "unexpected termination: of students' "lawful U.S. residency status" is "a pressing issue that demands our attention."
..... The State Department was planning to revoke more than 300 intentional visas, primarily student vises, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in comments made to the press in late March. [2025]
Students detained by ICE
..... The visa termination follow the detainment by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and Columbia University student who was a leader of its pro-Palestinian campus protests.
.....
Also detained was Rumeues Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University in Boston, who wrote an opinion piece about the protest for the student newspaper. Ozturk's controversial arrest by masked ICE agents who stopped her on the street near her home was captured on video.
..... Both moves have been challenged in court. Asked if revoking visas was a threat to free speech, Rubio said, "if they've taking [part in] activities that are counter to our foreign - to our national interest, to our foreign policy, we'll revoke the visa," according to a government-issued transcript.
..... Visa terminations would affect students who were part of the widespread and sometimes disruptive campus protest movements against Israel's military campaign in Gaza last spring. [2024] But other reasons could drive the termination, too, Rubio said.
..... "Some are unrelated to any protests and are just having to do with potential criminal activity," he said.
..... No airest were made during a four-day encampment on the Rutgers-New Brunswick campus last April. [2024] which need with protested and the university administration arriving at a peaceful resolution.
..... Nealy 150 students' visas had been revoked nationwide as of Tuesday, [04/08/2025] news
reports said. The Trump administration has terminated visas at public universities, including Kent State and Central Michigan University, and elite private schools such as Columbia University, Boston University and Yale University. Student visas and work-visa extensions for alumni were terminated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.