Students call Trump’s executive order ‘blatant attempt’ to intimidate foreign students.
By P.C. Staff
The National Youth/Student Council of the Japanese American Citizens League issued a statement May 14 denouncing the nationwide revocations of student visas for nearly 1,500 international students that has occurred in the past several weeks. The revocations were the result of an executive order signed by President Trump on Jan. 20.
In its statement condemning “the revocation of at least 1,487 visas,” the NY/SC asserted that the revocations were a “a blatant attempt to intimidate university students and suppress political expression.”
In the weeks after Trump signed Executive Order 14161, aka “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” (see here) on the day he became president for his second and final term, the Department of Homeland Security launched a nationwide crackdown targeting selected F-1 or foreign student visa holders studying at American universities.
Although many affected students claimed to have only minor infractions on their record or to not know why they were targeted, Secretary of State Marco Rubio in March said the State Department was revoking visas held by visitors who were acting counter to national interests, including some who protested Israel’s war in Gaza and those who face criminal charges.
In the case of Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national studying at Georgetown University, the White House asserted that his visa status was revoked because of the content in his social media posts, of which he was accused of supporting terrorist group Hamas.
In Utah, a Brigham Young University doctoral student from Japan named Suguru Onda who has been in the U.S. for six years discovered in April that his visa had been reinstated a few weeks after it had been revoked. In 2019, he received a catch-and-release fishing violation.
The JACL NY/SC added that “free speech, due process, and the right to assemble are not privileges — they are constitutional rights. The U.S. Constitution limits government power; it does not grant rights only to U.S. citizens or those deemed ‘American enough.’ ”
The surge in student visa revocations has also led to a surge in lawsuits filed by immigration lawyers on behalf of affected students. Judges have also weighed in by issuing orders that temporarily restored students’ records in dozens of lawsuits. In one instance, a federal judge in Oregon ordered the U.S. government to restore the visas of a pair of international students.
According to the Associated Press, there were about 1.1 million international students in the U.S. last year — with many of those losing their legal status hailing from India and China, which together add up to more than half the international students studying here.
The entirety of the NY/SC’s statement can be read here.
(Associated Press contributed to this report.)
