President Trump's Administration Revokes More Than 6,000 Student Visa

US visa illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/Zboralski)

JAKARTA - United States President Donald Trump's administration has revoked more than 6,000 student visas for exceeding the stay time limit and violating the law, including a small part for "supporting terrorism," State Department officials said Monday.

The move, first reported by Fox Digital, comes as the Trump Administration adopts a very harsh approach to student visas as part of its immigration crackdown, tightening social media checks and expanding filtering.

This year's directive from the State Department has ordered US diplomats abroad to be wary of any applicant Washington may see as a hostile party to the United States and has a history of political activism.

About 4,000 visas were canceled because visitors violated the law, with most of them in the form of attacks, the official said.

In addition, driving vehicles under the influence of alcohol and drugs and robbery is another offense, the official added.

Meanwhile, about 200 to 300 visas were revoked for terrorism, the official said, citing rules on visa in the State Department's Foreign Affairs Manual.

The rule identifies reasons for general visa non-performance as "involved in terrorist activities" and "has certain relationships with terrorist organizations."

However, the official did not mention which group was supported by students whose visas had been revoked.

Earlier, President Trump was known to have clashed with several leading US universities, accusing them of being a bulwark of antisemitism following protests by large-scale students who advocated for Palestinian rights amid the Gaza war. In his dispute with Harvard University, President Trump has frozen funds for investigations and threatened to lift the university's tax-free status, prompting several European countries to increase research grants to attract talent.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it had revoked visas for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people, including students, because they were involved in activities that he thought were contrary to US foreign policy priorities.

Trump's government officials say student visa holders and green cards can be deported because of their support for Palestine and criticism of Israel's actions in the war in Gaza. They called their actions a threat to US foreign policy and accused them of pro-Hamas.

A Turkish Tufts University student was detained for more than six weeks at an immigration detention center in Louisiana after co-wrote opinions criticizing his university's response to the Israeli war in Gaza. He was released from custody after a federal judge granted his bail.

Separately, critics of President Trump called the attempt an attack on the right to free speech based on the First Amendment to the US Constitution.