Rubio Says US May Have Revoked More Than 300 Visas

The secretary of state said students will lose their visas if they are engaging in vandalism or harassment.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Mass., on March 26, 2025. AP Photo

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on March 27 that the United States may have revoked more than 300 visas, as he spoke out against people who receive U.S. student visas and then engage in criminal activity.

“It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” Rubio said during a press conference in Guyana. “At some point, I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.”

Rubio was asked by a reporter several questions, including whether the United States has recently revoked 300 visas and why Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish national and graduate student, was detained near Tufts University this week.

Rubio said that authorities revoked the visa of Ozturk.

“Here’s why,” he said. “If you go apply for a visa anywhere in the world ... to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us the reason you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa.”

“If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa participate in that sort of activity, we’re going to take away your visa. And once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right—like every country has a right—to remove you from our country.”

Immigration authorities have in recent weeks arrested a number of students, including individuals attending Columbia University in New York City and the University of Alabama.

Some of the students have challenged the arrests, arguing they were unlawful.

Rubio has in each case determined that the presence of the students “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States,” according to court filings.

The Department of Homeland Security investigated Ozturk, who had received an F-1 visa to be in the United States to study, and learned she had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” a terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip, a spokesperson for the agency has said.

Ozturk wrote an op-ed in 2024 that called on Tufts officials to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and “divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel,” which has been battling with Hamas since the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the country.