Rubio Yanks Visas for Foreign Students Who Support Terrorists; UPDATE: Columbia Loses $400 Million Too

AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah

It's about damn time. 

For over a year--actually, the problem goes back many years, but has only come to a head since October 7th, 2023, foreign students have been flooding the United States breaking their visa requirements by supporting terrorist organizations around the world. 

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The activity has dramatically increased, and even become violent, since the massacre in Israel, and Americans have finally noticed that our government has tolerated enemies of our country and civilization as a whole to flourish right here. 

No longer. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is having none of it, and is not only vowing to deport the malefactors but to actively look for them instead of waiting for reports to float to the surface. 

Axios got the scoop

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts — marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government's policing of foreign nationals' conduct and speech.

  • The reviews of social media accounts are particularly looking for evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, officials say.

Officials plan to examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration.

  • They say they're also checking news reports of anti-Israel demonstrations and Jewish students' lawsuits that highlight foreign nationals allegedly engaged in antisemitic activity without consequence.
  • The State Department is working with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security in what one senior State official called a "whole of government and whole of authority approach."

Zoom in: To launch "Catch and Revoke," federal officials examined 100,000 people in the Student Exchange Visitor System since October 2023 to see if any visas had been revoked because the student been arrested or suspended from school.

  • Usually, a consular official whose office issues the visa for a foreigner makes the revocation decision once they've been alerted about an arrest or a suspension.
  • "We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration," the official said, "... which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement."
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There have been several instances where colleges have moved to suspend foreign students for occupying buildings and violating both school rules and even a number of laws, only to revoke the punishments to ensure students didn't lose their visas. 

Not only did this send the wrong message--if you are on a visa you can violate any law on campus--but it created a protected class of lawbreakers. 

Terrorist supporters, to be exact. How hard was it for Biden to say that supporting Hamas atrocities gets you a one-way ticket out of the country?

US visa regulations explicitly prohibit anybody who supports terrorism or who may in the future support their activities from entering the US on student visas. The Biden administration turned a blind eye to the law because, well, immigrants can violate any law with impunity in their eyes. 

It's the intersectional ladder at work. 

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It has been infuriating to see foreign students we have invited into our country--often with scholarships subsidized by US taxpayers--agitating against the United States and propagandizing for our enemies. 

Thaks to Marco Rubio, it looks like those days are over. 

UPDATE: Columbia University was just dinged $400 million in federal subsidies due to rampant antisemitism. 

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | March 07, 2025
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