AhlulBayt News Agency: The United States keeps cracking down on pro-Palestinian activists and demonstrations amid Washington’s talk of a new wave of visa revocations for “disruptive actions,” so to speak.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently confirmed that the administration of Donald Trump had revoked the visas of "maybe more than 300" people allegedly tied to pro-Palestinian university protests.
Rubio labeled those with revoked visas "lunatics."
"It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," Rubio said during a press conference in Guyana.
"At some point, I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them, but we're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up."
The remarks came in response to a question about masked agents detaining a foreign student named Rumeysa Ozturk at a University campus on March 25.
Ozturk's detention is the first known immigration-related arrest of a Boston-area student to be carried out by the Trump administration.
The latest person to be targeted by federal immigration agents is an Iranian doctoral student. Alireza Doroudi, who is studying mechanical engineering at the University of Alabama, was reportedly picked up on Tuesday morning from his home. It is not clear why the student was targeted.
The arrests were the latest Trump administration action against foreign students who have voiced support for Palestinians in Israel's campaign of genocide in Gaza.
The US authorities have detained several foreign-born students legally residing in the States on the accusation of involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.
Friends of Ozturk believe she may have been targeted because of a doxxing campaign for co-authoring an opinion article last year in the university newspaper, Tufts Daily.
The female student renewed calls for the university to adopt the Tufts Community Senate Resolutions to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide, apologize for University President Sunil Kumar’s statements, disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.”
Rubio’s announcement is sure to generate shockwaves through the international student community.
Media reports earlier said the Trump administration had initiated an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted drive to detect and annul the visas of foreign nationals and students supporting the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas on American soil.
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