GEORGETOWN: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday he has canceled the visas of more than 300 “lunatics” in a growing crackdown against anti-Israel activism on American university campuses.
Asked to confirm reports of 300 visas stripped, Rubio said: “Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day.”
“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” he told reporters on a visit to Guyana.
“At some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of them,” Rubio said.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office on January 20, Rubio has moved aggressively against students at the forefront of on-campus anti-Israel protests in response to the Gaza war.
The most high-profile case is Mahmoud Khalil, who led protests at Columbia University in New York. He was arrested this month and taken to Louisiana ahead of deportation proceedings, despite being a US permanent resident.
Rubio was asked about a new case at Tufts University in Massachusetts where immigration agents arrested a Turkish doctoral student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who had written an opinion piece in a campus newspaper demanding that the university recognize a “genocide” against the Palestinians.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, accused the Trump administration of moving to “abduct students with legal status.”
“This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa’s constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released,” Pressley said in a statement.
The Trump administration has responded that the US constitutional protection of free speech does not apply to non-US citizens and has accused activist students of creating a dangerous atmosphere for Jewish students.
Without commenting directly on the Tufts case, Rubio said: “If you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa.”
“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa, participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa,” he said.
