This story has been updated.
"Multiple" international students at UT Austin have had their visa status changed "unexpectedly" in recent days, a spokesperson for the university said Wednesday.
He did not elaborate on the number of students or any other details.
According to The Associated Press, two UT Austin graduates — one from India and the other from Lebanon — had their student visas revoked. Both had stayed in the U.S. to work after finishing their degrees, the AP reported, which was allowed through their visas. KUT News has not been able to independently confirm this specific information.
Students demonstrated on campus Wednesday to protest the Trump administration’s decision to revoke more than 300 student visas. Standing in front of the UT Tower, the small but growing crowd chanted and held signs that said things like “No human is illegal” and “No more deportations.”
The Austin chapter of Students for a Democratic Society organized the demonstration. Arshia Papari, a spokesperson for the progressive group, said news that the Trump administration had revoked the visas of UT students was of grave concern.
“We have a very large international student community based here at UT and they, like many other students, are rightly frightened and fearful,” Papari said.
According to UT Austin data, more than 6,600 international students from 130 countries are currently studying at the university.
Tim, a UT graduate student from Taiwan who declined to share his last name over concerns of retaliation, said it’s alarming that it's unclear why the federal government is revoking the visas.
“It’s very upsetting and ridiculous," he said, "and we feel very unsafe."
Tim said when he decided to attend graduate school in the U.S., he saw the country as one that valued freedom.
“But now I feel like America [has] become a country who’s controlling people’s thinking and people are very fearful of speaking out,” he said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in late March that the federal government would revoke the visas of students who participate in any movement that vandalizes or causes disruptions on university campuses.
“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,” he said.
While Rubio said he did not care which movement students were involved in, pro-Palestinian activists, such as Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, have been targeted.
The State Department told KUT News it revokes visas every day "to secure America's borders and keep our communities safe — and will continue to do so."
“Because the process is ongoing, the number of revocations is dynamic," a spokesperson said in an email. "The Department generally does not provide statistics on visa revocations, and we do not have anything additional to provide at this time."
In addition to the international students affected at UT Austin, Texas A&M University has said the government terminated the legal status of 15 of its students. In one case, according to The Associated Press, it may have been related to a speeding ticket.
Altogether, according to an analysis from The Texas Newsroom, the federal government has revoked the visas of at least 86 students and recent graduates of universities across the state.
Robert Painter, a managing attorney with the Texas Immigration Law Council, said the Trump administration’s decision to revoke student visas is somewhat unprecedented.
“I’ve been practicing immigration law for almost 12 years, and I’ve never seen it and I haven’t heard of anybody who’s seen something quite like this before,” he said. “So, I think it is unique, at least in my tenure as an immigration attorney.”
Painter said the administration’s tactics are meant to intimidate other international students.
“I think that there is definitely an intention to have a chilling effect on foreign students exercising their free speech rights, particularly if they’re exercising them in a way that’s deemed as contrary to the foreign policy interests of the U.S.,” he said.
Texas has one of the largest populations of international students in the country, with more than 76,000, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Only California, New York and Massachusetts have more international students.
If you know about the arrest or deportation of a person in the Austin area on a student visa, please reach out to KUT at tips@kut.org. KUT would be willing to consider anonymity as we understand people are worried about retaliation from officials.
