Colleges say the Trump administration is using new tactics to expel international students

WASHINGTON AP A crackdown on foreign students is alarming colleges who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push certain students out of the country College agents worry the new approach will keep foreigners from wanting to survey in the U S Students stripped of their entry visas are receiving orders from the Department of Homeland Defense to leave the country straightaway a break from past practice that often permitted them to stay and complete their studies Specific students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or criminal infractions or even traffic violations Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the establishment At Minnesota State University in Mankato President Edward Inch described the campus Wednesday that visas had been revoked for five international students for unclear reasons He reported school executives learned about the revocations when they ran a status check in a database of international students after the detention of a Turkish candidate at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis The State Department noted the detention was related to a drunken driving conviction These are troubling times and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before Inch wrote in a letter to campus President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests and federal agents started by detaining Columbia graduate pupil Mahmoud Khalil a green-card-holder and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to feasible criminal activity In the past two weeks the authorities apparently has widened its crackdown Bureaucrats from colleges around the country have discovered international students have had their entry visas revoked and in numerous cases their legal residency status terminated by bureaucrats without notice including students at Arizona State Cornell North Carolina State the University of Oregon the University of Texas and the University of Colorado Specific of the students are working to leave the country on their own but students at Tufts and the University of Alabama have been detained by immigration leadership in the Tufts scenario even before the university knew the learner s legal status had changed Feds circumvent colleges to move against students In this new wave of enforcement school representatives say the federal leadership is quietly deleting foreigners trainee records instead of going through colleges as was done in the past Students are being ordered to leave the country with a suddenness that universities have rarely seen reported Miriam Feldblum president and CEO of the Presidents Alliance on Higher Learning and Immigration In the past when international students have had entry visas revoked they generally have been allowed to keep legal residency status They could stay in the country to research but would need to renew their visa if they left the U S and sought to return Now increasing numbers of students are having their legal status terminated exposing them to the vulnerability of being arrested None of this is regular practice Feldblum commented At North Carolina State University two students from Saudi Arabia left the U S after learning their legal status as students was terminated the university stated N C State commented it will work with the students to complete their semester from outside the country Philip Vasto who lived with one of the students revealed his roommate in graduate school for engineering management was apolitical and did not attend protests against the war in Gaza When the governing body described his roommate his novice status had been terminated it did not give a reason Vasto stated Since returning to Saudi Arabia Vasto mentioned his former roommate s top concern is getting into another university He s made his peace with it he explained He doesn t want to allow it to steal his peace any further Database checks turn up students in jeopardy At the University of Texas at Austin staff checking a federal database discovered two people on pupil visas had their permission to be in the U S terminated a person familiar with the situation reported The person declined to be identified for fear of retaliation One of the people from India had their legal status terminated April The federal system indicated the person had been identified in a criminal records check and or has had their visa revoked The other person from Lebanon had their legal status terminated March due to a criminal records check according to the federal database Both people were graduates remaining in the U S on aspirant visas using an option allowing people to gain professional experience after completing coursework Both were employed full time and apparently had not violated requirements for pursuing work experience the person familiar with the situation explained Particular students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law barring noncitizens whose presence could have serious adverse foreign program consequences Trump invoked the law in a January order demanding action against campus antisemitism But specific students targeted in up-to-date weeks have had no clear link to political activism Particular have been ordered to leave over misdemeanor crimes or traffic infractions Feldblum noted In selected cases students were targeted for infractions that had been previously communicated to the executive Various of the alleged infractions would not have drawn scrutiny in the past and will likely be a test of students First Amendment rights as cases work their way through court announced Michelle Mittelstadt director of citizens affairs at the Migration Framework Institute In specific avenues what the administration is doing is really retroactive she explained Rather than saying This is going to be the standard that we re applying going forward they re going back and vetting students based on past expressions or past behavior The Association of Community and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department over the issue It s unclear whether more visas are being revoked than usual but executives fear a chilling effect on international exchange Numerous of the association s members have just now seen at least one participant have their visas revoked revealed Bernie Burrola a vice president at the group With little information from the regime colleges have been interviewing students or searching social media for a connection to political activism The universities can t seem to find anything that seems to be related to Gaza or social media posts or protests Burrola explained Particular of these are sponsored students by foreign governments where they specifically are very hesitant to get involved in protests There s no clear thread indicating which students are being targeted but specific have been from the Middle East and China he revealed America s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the world s brightest minds and they ve brought pivotal tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U S colleges But international students also have other options stated Fanta Aw CEO of NAFSA an association of international educators We should not take for granted that that s just the way things are and will perpetually be she disclosed The Associated Press tuition coverage receives financial endorsement from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for working with philanthropies a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP org Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in St Paul Minnesota and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this record