Marco Rubio said the federal government is ramping up its efforts to deport college and university students who engage in pro-Palestinian activism.
In a press conference on Thursday, Rubio claimed his office has torn up more than 300 student visas on his watch. The secretary of state called student activists "lunatics" and claimed that his department will continue to revoke visas "every day."
“Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio told reporters in Guyana. "Go back and do it in your country."
Rubio's comments came in response to the abduction of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk by plainclothes immigration officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Video of the encounter went viral on Wednesday. Ozturk, a Turkish national, helped author an op-ed denouncing Israel's actions in Gaza. That act seemed to be enough to trigger Rubio's regime. Though he failed to provide specifics, Rubio said Ozturk's actions went beyond sternly worded articles.
"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 going to give you a visa,” Rubio shared.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Rubio’s State Department, alleged on X that Ozturk was “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”
Ozturk is one of several high-profile student deportation cases across the country. Like Columbia University activist and legal permanent resident Khalil Mahmoud, Ozturk was quickly sent to a detention center in Louisiana. The PhD candidate was moved from Massachusetts to the southern state despite a judge's order forbidding her rendition.
“If you come into the US as a visitor and create a ruckus for us, we don't want it," Rubio said, by way of explanation.
The crackdown comes as other Trump administration officials turn up the temperature on their own mass deportation efforts. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem shared a social media video earlier this week from inside an El Salvador detention camp where hundreds of Venezuelans living inside the U.S. were sent on her office's allegations of gang affiliation.
