US revokes nearly 1,500 student visas: Who are the targets?

Al Jazeera

18-04-2025

Hundreds of students and recent graduates have seen their visas revoked by immigration officials since United States President Donald Trump took office for a second time on January 20, 2025, with several also arrested.
Many of the targets of the visa revocations and arrests are students who participated in pro-Palestine protests which erupted on campuses across the country in 2024 amid Israel's brutal war on Gaza. Others are individuals with more indirect links to Palestine – or those who have shown support for Gaza on social media.
The Trump administration alleges that these students spread anti-Semitism and pro-Hamas sentiment on campus – a claim students, lawyers and activists have all rebutted. Jewish activists and groups have been at the forefront of many of the most prominent protests in the US against the Gaza war.
Others have had visas removed after minor legal infractions – a speeding ticket or other traffic violations, for instance.
Here's what we know about the scale of visa revocations, the number of universities they span and some of the students who have been targeted:In late March, US Secretary of State March Rubio said the administration had revoked an estimated 300 student visas.
But the real number is higher – much higher.
Estimates vary. At the higher end is the American Immigration Lawyers Association's count, according to which more than 4,700 students have been removed from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement-maintained database known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS).
Yet even more conservative tabulations point to a number comfortably more than 1,000. The National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) estimates that as of April 17, there are reports of about 1,400 students who now face deportation.
According to Inside Higher Ed, the US-based higher education publication, 1,489 students had lost their visas as of April 17.
According to Inside Higher Ed's count, more than 240 universities and colleges across the US have had student visas revoked.
Colleges affected include private universities such as Harvard and Stanford, large public colleges and institutions such as Ohio State University and the University of Maryland, as well as some small arts colleges.
The Trump administration claims it is trying to stop activists from taking over campuses.
'We are not going to be importing activists into the United States. They're here to study. They're here to go to class. They're not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine the – our universities,' Rubio said on March 28.
But many students have reported that they have had their legal status in the US terminated without any notice.
Several among them, like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi and Momodou Taal, were active on social media in pro-Palestine protests on campuses.
However, according to Mohammad Ali Syed, who leads an immigration practice group in Washington, DC, others have had visas revoked for past traffic violations or, in some cases, with no clear explanation.
'This widespread action has led to legal challenges and raised concerns about due process and the impact on US higher education institutions,' said Syed, who emphasised that international students ought to consult with immigration lawyers promptly to explore legal remedies and protect their rights.
'Students can file lawsuits in federal courts, asserting violations of due process and seeking to restore their legal status. For instance, students at Michigan universities have initiated legal actions against the Department of Homeland Security, alleging that their F-1 statuses were terminated without sufficient notice or explanation,' he said.
In urgent situations, he added, students may request temporary restraining orders (TROs) to prevent deportation and reinstate their status while legal proceedings are ongoing. Federal judges in states like Montana have granted such orders to protect students from immediate removal, he said.
'Many universities are actively assisting affected students by providing legal resources, liaising with federal authorities, and offering academic accommodations,' Syed said. 'For example, George Mason University has engaged with federal officials to understand the rationale behind visa terminations and is exploring legal options to support its international students.'
Hafsa Kanjwal, an associate professor at Lafayette College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, says there is a large amount of fear and uncertainty on college campuses for both students and faculty. People are having to rethink travel plans in case they are not allowed back into the country.
'Some students and faculty don't have a place to 'go back' to, given the political turmoil in their respective places of origin,' she told Al Jazeera. 'While some colleges and universities are taking a more proactive approach, they are in the minority. It seems most campuses have not really provided reassurances to international students and faculty to address their concerns, especially around what kinds of accommodations will be made for them to address these changing developments.'
Another faculty member, a naturalised citizen at a state college who wished to remain anonymous due to any issues that may arise from him speaking freely, said international students are afraid.
Many of them – even those who have not staked out political positions publicly – are deleting their social media profiles and are terrified that some small mistake, anything they posted or said, might get them abducted and deported, ruining their education, he said.
'I remember being a green card holder and engaging in politics. We understood that as long as we remained within the bounds of the law, we had the right to express our opinions and engage in politics,' he recalled.
'I actively took part in [protests against] both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and spoke openly against War on Terror policies like drone strikes,' he said. 'What the Trump administration wants to do is communicate to immigrants and international students that their rights here are in fact privileges and contingent on them staying in line, and more broadly they want to shut down pathways to immigration by targeting green card holders.
'At the same time, they see universities and colleges as bastions of liberal and left-wing politics and they want to leverage the politics around Palestine to discipline universities and force them to crack down on liberal and left content in classrooms,' he added.• Date of arrest: March 8
• Nationality: Algerian Palestinian
• Institution: Columbia University graduate
• Legal status in the US: Green card holder
• How was he arrested? Last month, ICE agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate who was the lead negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) during the campus protests last year. He was taken from his university-owned New York City apartment while his US citizen wife, Noor Abdalla, who is pregnant, recorded the arrest on her phone. This marked the first publicly known student deportation effort of its kind under the Trump administration.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, alleged Khalil 'led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organisation', but no evidence for this was provided. Abdalla said the agents did not show a warrant while making the arrest. Khalil was transferred to an ICE processing facility in Jena, Louisiana.
At the time of arrest, Khalil was a permanent resident with a green card. When the ICE agents were told that Khalil had a green card, they said this would be revoked.
• Charges: He is not known to have been charged with any crime.
However, Rubio posted the link to a news article about Khalil's arrest, captioning it: 'We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported.' Khalil's case has drawn widespread scrutiny as rights advocates accuse President Donald Trump's administration of cracking down on free speech and pro-Palestine activism under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.
The administration is trying to deport Khalil under a rarely used provision of an immigration law that gives the secretary of state the power to remove any non-citizen whose presence in the US is deemed to have 'adverse foreign policy consequences'.
Khalil is being held at LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana.
• Date of arrest: March 26
• Nationality: Turkish
• Institution: Tufts University
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How was she arrested? Security camera footage shows six individuals in plainclothes taking Ozturk into custody in late March near her apartment in Somerville, Massachusetts. Some of these officers were partially covering their faces. Ozturk had headed out alone to meet her friends for Iftar, the evening meal to break her Ramadan fast.
• Charges: She is not known to have been charged with any crime.
On March 26, 2024, Ozturk co-wrote an opinion piece for her university's student news website, the Tufts Daily, with four other students. In this piece, the authors criticised the institute's president, Sunil Kumar, who sent an email dismissing resolutions passed by the Tufts Community Union Senate, which called for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel and 'acknowledge the Palestinian genocide'.
Ozturk's lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai, filed a petition in a Boston federal court, arguing that Ozturk had been unlawfully detained. As a result, US District Judge Indira Talwani ordered US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not to move Ozturk out of Massachusetts without 48 hours' notice.
Despite this, Ozturk was moved to Louisiana within a day, according to her lawyer.
US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an X post on March 26: 'DHS + ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.' McLaughlin did not specify what these activities were.
As of April 18, Ozturk is in the ICE portal as a detainee in the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.
• Date of arrest: March 17
• Nationality: Indian
• Institution: Georgetown University
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How was he arrested? He was arrested in the evening at his home in northern Virginia.
• Charges: He is not known to have been charged with any crime.
Department of Homeland Security Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin attributed Suri's arrest to his 'spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting anti-Semitism'. She wrote on X: 'Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.'
Suri's wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a US citizen, she confirmed to Al Jazeera. In a post on X on February 13, the Israeli embassy in the US said that Saleh was the daughter of a senior Hamas adviser. Ahmed Yousef, a former adviser to assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed to The New York Times that he is Suri's father-in-law.
On March 20, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles of the Eastern District of Virginia Court halted Suri's deportation.
According to the ICE website, Suri is currently being held in the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
• Date of arrest: March 5
• Nationality: South Korean
• Institution: Barnard, a Columbia-affiliated undergraduate college
• Legal status in the US: Permanent resident
• How was she arrested? Chung was one of several students arrested by police officers for participating in a pro-Palestine protest.
• Charges: She is not known to have been charged with any crime.
She has sued the Trump administration in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to avoid being deported. Her deportation was halted by US district judge Naomi Reice Buchwald.
• Nationality: Dual citizen of the United Kingdom and The Gambia
• Institution: Was a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell University
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• Charges: He is not known to have been charged with any crime.
He participated in pro-Palestine protests last year, during which he called on Cornell to divest from companies that sell weapons to Israel. Taal was suspended from Cornell twice last year for his participation in protest activities and encampment. He has not been arrested but believes the US government had attempted to arrest him.
Taal told Al Jazeera that he filed a lawsuit on March 8 alongside two other plaintiffs – a doctoral candidate and a Cornell professor who are both US citizens – after Khalil was arrested, against two Trump executive orders, including the one focused on university campuses.
On the morning of March 19, a day after a federal judge scheduled a hearing for Taal's lawsuit, Taal posted a written statement on X that 'unidentified law enforcement' had come to his home in Ithaca, New York. He added that later in the day, Cornell students saw additional law enforcement cars positioned at different spots near his residence, including on campus.
Taal left the US once his visa was revoked on March 14.
• Date of arrest: March 25, 2025
• Nationality: Iranian
• Institution: University of Alabama
• Legal status in the US: Student visa
• How was he arrested? Taken into custody from his home
• Charges: He is not known to have been charged with any crime.
The Department of Homeland Security stated the student visa was revoked and he was then arrested because he 'posed significant national security concerns'.
• Nationality: Indian
• Institution: Columbia University
• Legal status in the US: Student visa which has been revoked
• Charges: She is not known to have been charged with any crime.
On March 7, individuals claiming to be immigration agents came knocking on Srinivasan's university residential housing flat that she had lived in since 2021. The individuals said they planned to put Srinivasan through proceedings to remove her from the US, before eventually leaving.
On March 9, Columbia unenrolled Srinivasan as a student.
By March 11, Srinivasan had flown out of New York to Canada on a visitor visa to stay with her family and friends. Her lawyers informed ICE that Srinivasan had departed from the US.
• Date of arrest: March 13, 2025
• Nationality: Palestinian
• Institution: unknown
• Legal status in the US: Overstayed a student visa
• Charges: The DHS stated Kordia had overstayed her student visa, which had been terminated in 2022 'for lack of attendance'. In April 2024 she was arrested for her involvement in protests for Gaza at Columbia University.
• Nationality: Chinese
• Institution: Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
• Legal status in the US: Student visa which was revoked
• Charges: No known charges have been made.
On April 3, Liu's college ran a routine check on his legal status and discovered that his student visa had been revoked without notice.
The next day, the university informed him he could not continue with his computer science doctorate.
Liu says he has not been charged with any crime and did not take part in any protests.
He sued the US government along with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, alleging his visa had been revoked 'without any notice and sufficient explanation'.
On April 9, a federal judge in New Hampshire halted the decision temporarily, saying she would block the Trump administration's apparent revocation of Liu's status.
• Date of arrest: April 14, 2025
• Nationality: Palestinian
• Institution: Columbia University
• Legal status in the US: Green card holder
• How was he arrested: Mohsen Mahdawi was detained on Monday as he attended an interview at an immigration office regarding his application for citizenship, according to his lawyers.
• Charges: He is not known to have been charged with any crime.
Shortly after Mahdawi's detention, District Judge William Sessions ordered that he must not be taken from the state of Vermont or the US. Mahdawi is the co-founder of a Palestinian student group at Columbia University, alongside Khalil.
It is unclear where he is being held.