Washington:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio added Tuesday that he probably had thousands of visas revoked, and he believes there is still work to do.
Republican President Donald Trump's administration has sought to step up deportation and revoke student visas as part of a broader effort to fulfill his hard-hit immigration agenda.
“I don't know the latest counts, but there's probably more to do,” Rubio told the Senate Budget subcommittee, which oversees diplomacy.
Asked for an estimate, he said at this point it was probably an increase since March. He said the State Department may have revoked more than 300 visas.
Rubio said the 300 revoked visas are a combination of student and visitor visas. He said he signed each action.
“Visa is not a right, it's a privilege,” Rubio said Tuesday.
Trump administration officials have said student visas and green cardholders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel's actions in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to US foreign policy and accusing them of pro-hammers.
Trump critics call the effort an attack on freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
“I know this will be ruled in court, but the idea that a person can give their opinions on someone's future or expected activities…threw someone's visa and it seems to me an extraordinary violation of legitimate proceedings,” Democrat Sen. Jeff Markley told Rubio at the hearing.
Earlier this month, Tufts University students from Turkish origins co-written an opinion piece criticizing the school's response to Israeli war in Gaza, before being held for more than six weeks at the Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana. She was released from custody after a federal judge granted her bail.
The US District Judge William Session at the hearing in Burlington, Vermont ordered the immediate release of Le Mesa Ozturku, who is at the heart of the best cases that emerge from Trump's campaign to deport pro-Palestinian activists on American campuses.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by Syndicate Feed.)
