Democrats who have been critical of the student protest movement supporting Palestine say international students who could lose their visas should get due process, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be punished.
“It’s a privilege to be in this country and get an education here, and if you’re interfering with other students’ rights, then yeah, you should be subject to having your visa revoked,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told NOTUS.
The Trump administration launched a concerted effort to revoke student visas for people tied to pro-Palestine demonstrations at their universities. Some international students have been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and face deportation. The crackdown has placed pro-Israel Democrats in a bind: Do they back the Trump administration or protesters?
Some rejected the idea that Trump was violating students’ freedom of speech by going after individuals involved in or supportive of the protests.
“You don’t have a constitutional right to a visa,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz said in response to questions about possible First Amendment violations. “I find that argument underwhelming, because at the end of the day, a student visa or a tourism visa is not a right, it’s a privilege.”
The Democrats said they want students to get due process, which they weren’t sure has been happening under Trump. If students have broken the law or supported terrorist groups like Hamas, as the administration claims some of them have, though, they need to go, some Democratic lawmakers said.
Sen. John Fetterman called the situation “nuanced,” but added that “if any of the students were actively involved promoting Hamas, or they were involved in organizations back in their home nations,” then that would need to be taken into consideration.
However, Fetterman said if a student just “wrote an article, then that’s a much different thing.”
The Trump administration has gone out of its way to tie any form of protest against Israel’s actions in the conflict as pro-Hamas. In some high-profile cases, the administration made this argument against students or recent graduates who hadn’t been charged or convicted of any crime. Rümeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts, wrote an opinion piece for the student newspaper. Mahmoud Khalil, who has a green card, served as a negotiator on behalf of protestors at Columbia University, where an encampment became controversial and was ultimately broken up by police.
Some Democrats pointed out that this isn’t exactly a change in policy.
“This is something that the president talked about during the campaign, so this was not a surprise. This is something he discussed,” Moskowitz said. “If you’re a student here on a student visa, and you’re going to pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist rallies, I think after due process, if that’s proven true, then I think it’s possible that your student visa could be revoked.”
Republican lawmakers have been critical of universities for the way they’ve handled the protests that reached their peak last summer, often calling the protests and the handling of them antisemitic. Trump early on in his second term called for the deportation of those involved in the protests, and quickly followed through with those efforts.
“It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live and study in the United States of America. When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement regarding two students who left the country or were arrested by ICE.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was even more blunt: “Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said during a press conference last month.
Foreigners who come to the United States on student visas don’t have the same rights as others with more permanent forms of status. Depending on their status, either the Department of Homeland Security or the State Department can revoke their visas. Under Rubio’s direction, the State Department is using artificial intelligence to find and revoke the visas of students who may be “pro-Hamas.”
Recent reporting suggests that the administration has not even notified students or universities of revoked statuses, or provided a reason for the decisions.
“I don’t like an administration determining that administratively, they can take people that they should go before a judge and make a case to an impartial evaluator,” Rep. George Latimer said. “This administration is prepared to push the boundaries of executive authority well beyond what’s acceptable.”
Multiple Democrats who have been critical of the protesters’ actions said that they were concerned about due process. “I don’t agree with a lot of things that were said at some of these protests,” said Rep. Tom Suozzi, but “I still believe in due process.”
Some said they hoped the courts would weigh in.
“If you’re a noncitizen who communicates speech supporting Hamas, is your endorsement of terrorism grounds for deportation?” Rep. Ritchie Torres asked. “I’m not clear that the court has resolved that question.”
The Supreme Court’s record on the issue is mixed, and it’s not clear how justices would rule on the rights of student activists from other countries.
“Only due process can determine whether there has in fact been a violation,” Torres said. “We should never take the government’s word for it.”
In the meantime, criticism has exploded around the perception that some students have been punished unfairly, especially involving those who have been kept in detention.
“This is the problem with not taking someone before a judge,” Rep. Greg Landsman said — it means whether or not they deserve to be deported “we don’t know.”
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.