What to know about the wave of student visa cancellations
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios
The feds are expanding their revocation of student visas nationwide, sidestepping the regulations governing visa status, attorneys say.
The big picture: The Trump administration has moved beyond penalizing international students over pro-Palestinian activism and stripped scores of students' visas without explanation, university officials and attorneys say.
- A student at Emerson College and a doctoral candidate at Dartmouth College who never partook in protests or had any criminal record were among those stripped of their visas.
Catch up quick: Schools across the country, including Boston University, Emerson and Harvard University, learned that some students abruptly had their visas revoked without explanation.
- This comes weeks after the Trump administration made international headlines for detaining Columbia University graduates and Tufts University student Rumeysa Öztürk over pro-Palestinian activism.
- The move surprised university officials, who usually are the ones who start the revocation process if they suspect a student violated the terms of their visa.
State of play: International students and their attorneys are scrambling to find out why their visas were revoked and how to avoid meeting the same fate as Öztürk and other detainees.
The latest: Lawyers representing Xiaotian Liu, a Dartmouth doctoral candidate from China, filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging his due process rights as a student visa holder were violated when his visa was pulled last Friday.
- They also filed a temporary restraining order to block federal immigration agents from detaining and deporting him before he can fight his case.
- DHS did not immediately respond to an inquiry Tuesday.
How it works: International applicants who are accepted into U.S. colleges must obtain a visa and follow strict rules to study here, says Mona Zafar Khan, a Boston-area immigration attorney.
- Their visas can be revoked if they violate those rules — working off campus without permission or failing to maintain a full class load — or if they're charged with a crime.
Yes, but: Even students whose visas are revoked can get them reinstated as long as five months later if they meet certain requirements, Khan says.
- That's why a visa revocation rarely means their visa status in the online database is terminated, attorneys say.
In the weeds: Khan and attorneys representing Liu, the Dartmouth student, say another unusual factor is that the Department of Homeland Security terminated the visa statuses.
- Usually, the online database, known as SEVIS, is overseen by the State Department.
- DHS can make those decisions in limited circumstances, like if there's a national security, diplomatic or public safety concern.
- But those concerns must be outlined in a Federal Register notice first, which hasn't happened, Liu's attorneys wrote in court documents.
Threat level: Liu and other students now live in fear of being detained and deported and not knowing why their visa was revoked — a practice that until now was unheard of, Khan tells Axios.
- That fear is even more palpable for international students who have spoken out on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially after the detainment of Öztürk on suspicion of "pro-Hamas" activities.
- "[The revocation is] not for violating your student visa. It's for speaking the truth about an ongoing genocide," Khan says, referring to the war in Gaza.
Zoom out: If the widespread student visa revocations continue, universities that rely on high tuition fees from international students could suffer financially.
- An estimated 1 million international students generate more than $40 billion for American higher education each year, per a 2024 article by The World.
The bottom line: The wave of revocations is the latest event upending American colleges and, potentially, the nation's future talent pipeline.
