Visas Revoked for 13 UMass Amherst Students. Trend Accelerates Across the Nation’s Campuses

Thirteen UMass Amherst international students (15 students across all five UMass campuses) have had their visas revoked and student status terminated by the State Department as of Friday morning (4/11). In a statement sent to the campus community reporting the first revocations last Friday, UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes said that the university was not notified by federal authorities of the status revocations and only became aware as a result of proactive checks in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database. It is not yet clear why the students’ visas were taken away or if the affected students will have to leave the country. The names of the students whose status was revoked were not released by the university, nor were specific reasons for the revocations provided by ICE.

The Guardian reported that the State Department said that the widespread revocations across the nation were related to activism and participation in student-led protests against the war in Gaza or for minor crimes.  

Reyes said, “These revocations are troubling on several levels. These actions have been attributed by federal authorities to alleged incidents, in some cases, as minor as off-campus traffic violations. And in the past, students’ legal statuses in the United States were not immediately canceled due to a revoked visa. Under the new administration, in some cases, student statuses are being revoked within hours of the visa’s revocation.”

Reyes continued, “As reported in Inside Higher Education “[w]hen international students have their entry visas revoked, they almost always retain their legal residency status in SEVIS, according to immigration lawyers. They can stay in the country as long as they remain enrolled in courses and must reapply for a new visa if they leave. Now, as the Trump administration revokes hundreds of student visas each week, federal immigration officials also seem to be terminating students’ SEVIS status—paving the way for arrest and deportation.”

Reyes reported that UMass is doing everything it can to support its students. He said that UMass is connecting these students to on- and off-campus resources and that includes personal outreach from leadership within the Offices of the Provost, Student Affairs and Campus Life, and Global Affairs. He added that the UMass administration continues to work with the UMass Office of General Counsel and the Attorney General of Massachusetts to ensure that they are doing everything within their power to protect the UMass community. And they are advising international students on personal statuses such as parole, temporary protected status, asylum, etc. to contact the Office of Student Legal Services or their personal attorney.

UMass Amherst has also established the Angel Emergency Fund to help meet the legal, academic, housing, living and counseling needs of students who are adversely affected by changes in federal immigration.

Nearly 800 Student Visas Revoked Across the Country
Inside Higher Education reports that as of April 11, the State Department has revoked the visas and/or changed the legal status of 790 international students and recent graduates across 150 US colleges and universities (see here for a map of the affected campuses). Visas of at least 50 students had been revoked at Arizona State University and more than three dozen were revoked across Calfornia colleges and Universities, and at least 73 were revoked from students in colleges and universities in North Texas. Numbers are changing daily and are being tracked by Inside Higher Education and on X (formerly Twitter) by the online news service Drop Site News.

Most college officials say they’re unsure of why international students had their residency status terminated and have yet to receive formal notification of the actions from immigration authorities.

BBC reports that many of those targeted have participated in some form of pro-Palestinian activity. In other cases, cancellations appear to be connected to those with some sort of criminal record, or legal infractions like driving over the speed limit. They report that “immigration experts say visa-holding students have the same First Amendment right to free speech as US citizens, and historically it has been rare for students to be deported because of acts of political expression. But they are vulnerable to deportation because of the temporary nature of their visa.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been widely quoted as saying that student visas are for studying and warned  that visas would be revoked “if foreigners were seen engaging in destabilizing acts.” 

Inside Higher Education reported that Rubio had referred to the students whose visas had been revoked as “lunatics” claiming that  these students had sought entrance into the U.S. “not just to study but to participate in movements that vandalize universities, harass other students, take over buildings, and cause chaos.”

Read more: Why has Trump Revoked Hundreds of International Student Visas (BBC)