The United States has withdrawn over 300 student visas – said the head of American diplomacy Marco Rubio. Referring to foreign students protesting at university campus, he warned that the American authorities were looking for “these madmen” every day. His statement is related to the detention of a Turkish student this week.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the State Department withdrew over 300 student visas. He announced that the administration Donald Trump It will undo the visa of every student who will participate in activities such as devastation of universities, harassing other students, taking over buildings, or causing riots.
He warned that the authorities were looking for “those madmen who destroy everything” every day. – There may be over 300 of them. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these madmen, I take his visa – he said. – The people we get rid of from our country make acts of vandalism, they are not protesters. They take over university campuses, harass other students – said, quoted by Reuters, at the Thursday conference.
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Turkish student case
As Reuters writes, the statement of the American head of diplomacy is a reaction to questions about the Turkish student Tufts University, 30-year-old Rumeysa Oztur. On Tuesday, she was detained in Somerville, Massachusetts by masked agents of the Internal Security Department (DHS). Ozturk is a student of a doctoral program in the field of research on children and human development, and in the US she has been studying since 2018, staying there on the basis of a student visit F-1. She is a scholarship holder of the prestigious Fulbright program.
Rubio confirmed that her visa was withdrawn, but he did not indicate from what specific reasons. He asked why any country in the world would allow people to enter and disorganize the work of university campuses – writes NBC News.
It is known that a young woman was involved in supporting Palestinian support. A year ago, she was a co -author of a commentary in the student newspaper “Tufts Daily”, in which the university's reaction to students' appeals was criticized, including for “recognition of the Palestinian genocide” and withdrawal from cooperation with companies that have connections with Israel.
On Thursday, the US Department of Justice announced that a woman is currently being kept at an immigration center in Louisiana. On Wednesday, the lawyer of a student Mahsa Khanbabai emphasized that the claims against her client are unfounded and that she was not charged. “It looks like the only thing she is attacked is her right to freedom of speech,” she said.
USA. There are more stops
Donald Trump's administration believes that some student protests are anti -Semitic and can be in contradiction with USA foreign policy. CNN writes that Ozturk is one of several citizens of other countries related to prestigious American universities.
Another of the recently detained people associated with the world of science is the Russian Ksenia Petrowa, working at Harvard Medical School. As “Guardian” writes, her colleagues said on Wednesday that she was detained at the airport in Boston on February 16 after she returned from the trip to France. She was informed about the withdrawal of her visa and that she could be deported to Russia. Petrowa was to tell officers that he was afraid of deportation because of possible political persecution. Her boss Leon Peshkin said in an interview that the woman publicly objected to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and called for impeachment Vladimir Putin – writes the British portal.
NBC News emphasizes that these activities are part of the wider efforts of the Trump administration, aimed at limiting the laws of legal residents and visas owners. Experts warn that they may undermine the fundamental American right to freedom of speech and gatherings. – Sending messages to the best and the dumbly from around the world who traditionally come to American universities because of their openness and intellectual vigor, and now they hear: “We don't want you here”, is extremely disturbing – said Ben Wizner, Speech project director, private, and technology at American Civil Liberties Union.
PAP, Reuters, NBC News, CNN, The Guardian
Source of the main photo: EPA/Will Oliver