Mass Student Visa Revocations: 8,000+ Visas Pulled

The State Department revoked over 8,000 student visas since the start of Trump's second term as part of the mass deportation campaign. In total, approximately 100,000 nonimmigrant visas were revoked — about double the rate under Biden's last year.

The crackdown extended across higher education:

• The administration launched the "Student Criminal Alien Initiative" in March 2025, prompting ICE to run criminal records checks on all 1.3 million international students
• Some students were detained specifically for pro-Palestinian campus advocacy — a federal judge found the detentions were ideologically motivated
• A March 2026 ruling allowed a lawsuit challenging the mass revocations to proceed
• Universities reported significant declines in international student enrollment

Combined with the war on Harvard, NIH funding cuts, and the broader anti-university campaign, the visa revocations drove international students and researchers away from American institutions — undermining the country's competitive advantage in higher education and research that took decades to build.