Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked by a reporter yesterday about the visa revocation of the Tufts University grad student who was taken into custody by ICE earlier this week.
His answer could not have been more clear. He makes a solid and completely logical case for why this is happening.
Transcript via Real Clear Politics:
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, a Turkish student in Boston was detained and handcuffed on the street by plainclothes agents. A year ago, she wrote an opinion piece about the Gaza war.Could you help us understand what the specific action she took that led to her visa being revoked and what was your State Department’s role in that process?SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO: We revoked her visa. It’s an F1 visa, I believe. We revoked it, and here’s why, and I’ll say it again. I’ve said it everywhere. Let me be abundantly clear, OK?If you go apply for a visa right now anywhere in the world, let me just send this message out. If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not gonna give you a visa.If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re gonna take away your visa. And once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country. So it’s just that simple.I think it’s crazy. I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country — they’re going to go to your universities as visitors, they’re visitors, and say, “I’m going to your universities to start a riot. I’m going to your universities to take over a library and harass people.”I don’t care what movement you’re involved in. Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt?We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses.
Watch the whole thing below, this is excellent.
According to Axios, the Trump administration’s crackdown could become even more serious:
The Trump administration is discussing plans to try to block certain colleges from having any foreign students if it decides too many are “pro-Hamas,” senior Justice and State Department officials tell Axios.Why it matters: The effort — which could include grand jury subpoenas —marks another escalation of Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration and antisemitism that civil libertarians say stifles campus speech and has led to several lawsuits.Zoom in: The idea of prohibiting colleges from enrolling any student visa-holders grew out of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s “Catch and Revoke” program, which now is focusing on students who protested against the war in Gaza.
- A senior State Department official called the demonstrators it’s targeting “Hamasniks” — people the government claims have shown support for the terror group.
This insanity has been going on for far too long. It’s about time the United States took control of the situation.
Featured image via YouTube.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY