US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked the visas of more than 6,000 students.
The State Department says this is mostly for overstays or breaking the law, with violations including assault, driving under the influence, and burglary.
It added that in a small minority of cases this was because of “support for terrorism”, without specifying what it meant by this.
However, Trump’s administration has targeted students who have protested in support of Palestine, accusing them of antisemitism.
Revoking visas is the latest salvo in Trump’s ongoing battle with universities as part of his immigration crackdown.
He has tightened social media vetting, expanded screening, and in the case of Harvard, frozen its funding for investigations and threatened to remove its tax-exempt status.
Trump’s moves against higher education has seen the number of people arriving in the US on student visas fall dramatically.
It has also prompted universities in Europe and elsewhere to increase research grants to attract this talent.
Analysts say the decline in foreign students not only threatens to disrupt the financial models of US colleges and universities but could also result in a decline in research output and innovation.
Source: Africanews
