{shortcode-074ca537aa4fde0870572e1aa1689d1131647578}
Updated Sunday, April 6, at 10:52 p.m.
Three Harvard students and two recent graduates have had their student visas revoked amid the Trump administration’s push to deport international students involved in pro-Palestine protests, according to an email from the Harvard International Office to international students.
Harvard discovered the revoked visas during a “routine records review,” according to the email.
The HIO did not identify the students or graduates in the email, citing privacy concerns. The Crimson was not immediately able to determine the students’ identities.
“We are not aware of the details of the revocations or the reasons for them, but we understand that comparable numbers of students and scholars in institutions across the country have experienced similar status changes in roughly the same timeframe,” the HIO wrote.
The Trump administration has moved to deport international students and faculty who have been involved in pro-Palestine activism. On March 27, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said more than 300 visas had been revoked in recent weeks.
Rubio announced on Saturday that the United States would revoke all visas for South Sudanese passport holders.
A University spokesperson declined to comment.
College administrators nationwide have discovered revoked student visas through running database checks, without being notified by federal agencies. Some international students have had their legal residency status — in addition to entry visas — taken away, an unusual step that could force them to immediately leave the country.
Though many students have lost visas because of pro-Palestine statements, some have had visas revoked because of other incidents — including traffic violations.
The HIO email was sent as members of the Harvard Corporation — Harvard’s highest governing body — met in Harvard Square.
When approached by a Crimson reporter as they left an administrative building on Sunday afternoon, two Corporation fellows — Carolyn A. “Biddy” Martin and Shirley M. Tilghman — were unaware of the visa revocations.
“We’ve been in meetings all day,” they said.
The HIO email comes less than two weeks after Tufts University Ph.D. student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen who wrote a pro-Palestine op-ed, had her visa revoked after being arrested by ICE officials near her home in Somerville. Ozturk was accused of engaging in “activities in support of Hamas” by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.
And the University of Massachusetts Amherst announced on Friday that five international students had their visas revoked in the past week.
But Sunday’s email was the first public indication that Harvard students have been caught up in the Trump administration’s visa sweeps.
In February, a visa belonging to Harvard Medical School researcher and Russian citizen Kseniia Petrova was revoked after she failed to properly declare frog embryos she brought into the country. Petrova is detained in a Louisiana ICE facility.
The HIO wrote in Sunday’s email that “Harvard deeply values the international students and scholars who travel here to learn and grow.”
“The talent they bring to campus each day increases our ability to advance world-class discovery in fields that have meaningful impact on people’s lives, while creating positive relationships and discourse that expand the horizons of people across our community,” they wrote.
—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel contributed reporting.
—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.
