The US State Department has revoked more than 6,000 student visas this year, a State Department official said Monday, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on some international students it says have broken the law.

The visas were revoked because people had stayed after their visas expired or broken the law, the official said, noting that the “vast majority” of those legal violations were for cases of assault, driving under the influence, burglary, and “support for terrorism.”

According to the official, approximately 4,000 of the 6,000 visas were revoked because the visa holders “broke the law.”

Approximately 200 to 300 of those visas were yanked for alleged terrorism under part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that says that foreign nationals may be inadmissible to the US “due to terrorist related activities.”

The thousands of revocations, first reported by Fox News, come as the Trump administration has undertaken aggressive actions towards universities and related to student visas.

Administration officials have particularly targeted international students active in protests against the war in Gaza, accusing those students of antisemitism and of supporting terrorism.

In one high profile case, Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk’s visa was canceled, and she was seized by masked federal agents in March and put into ICE detention. A judge ordered her release in May.

In June, the State Department told its embassies and consulates it must vet student visa applicants for “hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” Applicants will be asked to set their social media profiles to public as part of the vetting, and a diplomatic cable noted that “limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vigorously defended the Trump administration’s policies on student visa revocation.

“There is no constitutional right to a student visa. A student visa is something we decide to give you,” he said in an interview with EWTN in early August. “Visas of every kind are denied every day all over the world. As I speak to you now, someone’s visa application to the US is being denied. So, if I would have denied you a visa had I known something about you, and I find out afterwards that I gave you a visa and I found this out about you, why wouldn’t I be able to revoke your visa?”

According to the State Department, roughly 400,000 student visas, otherwise known as F1 visas, were issued in fiscal year 2024.

Far fewer are expected to be issued this calendar year after new appointments were temporarily suspended, and the new vetting requirements were put in place.

An analysis by NAFSA: Association of International Educators and JB International forecast a potential 30–40 percent decline in new international student enrollment, contributing to a 15% drop in overall enrollment this fall.

“Such an outcome would deprive local economies of $7 billion in spending and more than 60,000 jobs,” NAFSA said in late July.

“Without significant recovery in visa issuance in July and August, up to 150,000 fewer students may arrive this fall,” it said. (CNN)

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The U.S. Department of State’s 2024 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Sri Lanka says the government made only minimal efforts to identify and hold accountable officials responsible for human rights violations.

Referring to extrajudicial killings in 2024, the report says there were several reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings during the year. 

In September, the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) reported a total of seven cases of custodial deaths during the period between January and August. Police reported 103 targeted shootings throughout the year, it said. 

On Freedom of the Press, the report says even though the constitution provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, the government sometimes restricted this right. 

In its report on the human rights situation in the country, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) observed a persistent trend of surveillance, intimidation, and harassment of journalists and civil society actors, especially those working on enforced disappearances, land seizures, environmental issues, and with former combatants in the north and east, it said. 

The report further said that there were no reports of enforced disappearances by or on behalf of government authorities, during this period.

The Office on Missing Persons (OMP) reported it had not received any new complaints of missing persons or enforced disappearances during the year. There was little progress investigating allegations of abuses from the 1983-2009 civil war or the 1988-89 Marxist insurrection. Impunity and lack of accountability for war-era abuses remained a problem, it said. 

In its observations on prolonged detention without charges, the report says the government generally did not observe the requirements of the law, which prohibited arbitrary arrest and detention and provided for the right of any person to challenge the lawfulness of their arrest or detention in court.  

The report says the HRCSL received 838 complaints of arbitrary arrest or detention between January and August, including the arrests of journalists and politicians. According to the HRCSL, authorities notified 46 cases of arrests and detentions under the PTA between January 2023 and March 2024. 

On torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the report observes that even though the constitution and law prohibited such practices, there were credible reports that government officials employed them.

The International Truth and Justice Project Sri Lanka, an international NGO documenting ongoing human rights violations in the country, confirmed that it had documented six cases in which individuals were abducted, detained without formal arrest or charges, held incommunicado for several days, subjected to torture, coerced into signing confessions, and later released, it said.

On the Online Safety Act (OSA), the report said that even though in November 2023, the Supreme Court ruled more than half of the provisions in the OSA were unconstitutional and required revisions to the law, the government had committed to making revisions but had not done so by the end of the year.

The report acknowledges acts of antisemitism and antisemitic incitement, stating that there was a small Jewish population living in different parts of the country, but there were no known reports of antisemitic incidents.

The overall findings of the U.S. Department of State’s 2024 Country Report on Human Rights Practices for Sri Lanka revealed that the government took minimal steps to identify and punish officials who committed human rights abuses.

Full report : https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/sri-lanka (Newswire)

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US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu will travel to Sri Lanka on 05 December 2024.

Issuing a statement, the US State Department said the US Assistant Secretary will engage in the tour alongside his visit to India, and Nepal. 

Donald Lu’s trip is expected to strengthen cooperation with key partners in South Asia to promote regional prosperity and security.

On December 5, US Assistant Secretary Lu will travel to Colombo, Sri Lanka, to advance U.S.-Sri Lankan joint efforts to promote sustainable economic growth, combat corruption, and strengthen people-to-people ties.  

USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator Anjali Kaur and Department of the Treasury Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Kaproth will join the Assistant Secretary to meet with senior government officials from Sri Lanka’s new administration and representatives from civil society.  

The US State Department says discussions will deepen ties with the new government, support its efforts to combat corruption and explore how the United States can support Sri Lanka’s governance and economic reform agenda through tailored technical assistance, capacity building, and development programs. (Newswire)

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