As college students return to campus this fall, the U.S. Department of State wants to send a message that anti-Semitism and terrorist threats won’t be tolerated.
The State Department announced that more than 6,000 foreign student visas have been revoked since the start of the second Trump administration.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly clashed with universities, including Harvard and Columbia, for DEI initiatives, out-of-control protests, and other woke policies.
The department yanked visas due to overstays and other criminal offenses, including assault, DUIs, burglary and “support for terrorism,” Fox News Digital first reported on Tuesday.
Students who publicly participate in pro-Palestinian activism and takeovers are under heightened scrutiny, as well as colleges that allow anti-Israeli protests and Jewish hate crimes to occur.
“Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States,” a senior State Department official said in a statement.
“About 4,000 visas alone have been revoked because these visitors broke the law while visiting our country, including records of assault and DUIs.”
Roughly 800 students either faced arrest or charges stemming from assault, according to the State Department official.
Others had their visas revoked due to overstaying their expiry date. A small number were revoked for “support for terrorism,” the official said, without elaborating.
Another 200 to 300 students had their visas pulled due to support for terrorism, although it is not clear what standard was used for those allegations.
They reportedly engaged in behavior such as raising funds for the militant group Hamas, which the U.S. State Department has designated as a terrorist organization, the official said.
Since January, the Trump administration has sanctioned universities for failing to rein in protests decrying Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, while cracking down on foreign students who promote anti-Semitism and terrorism.
The administration has enhanced screening for student visa applications, among measures narrowing pathways to enter the United States, The Washington Post reported.
The State Department has pulled roughly 40,000 visas in 2025 compared to 16,000 by the Biden administration this time last year, Fox News Digital reported.
“Even if the previous administration was doing less, they were still revoking visas,” the State Department official said. “It’s not something that just started on January 20 … So, this has happened for years.”
For more than a year, pro-Palestine protests have erupted on college campuses across the country, most notably Columbia University and Harvard University, but they’ve also been prominent on the West Coast.
Mahmoud Khalil, a well-known pro-Palestine activist and organizer, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8, 2025, sparking more outrage in New York City.
In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers on the Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing foreign affairs that the administration was looking into foreign students tied to terrorism and anti-Israeli activism.
“We’re going to continue to revoke the visas of people who are here as guests and are disrupting our higher education facilities,” Rubio said.
In a May report by The Hill, Rubio also said the United States would start revoking the student visas of Chinese nationals at universities.
“The U.S. will begin revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio posted on the social platform X.
A student visa permits those outside the U.S. to study in the country for a set amount of time at an academic institution. But the Trump administration claims that foreign students are abusing the system, taking spots away from deserving American students and gaining research intel that could be leaked to their respective countries.
They’re also accused of disrupting the academic learning environment and spreading anti-Semitism on college campuses.
As a result, President Donald Trump signed several executive orders in January, aimed at safeguarding the U.S. from foreign terrorists and other national security threats, along with combating anti-Semitism.
One of the executive orders instructed the State Department and other federal agencies, to “vet and screen to the maximum degree possible all aliens who intend to be admitted, enter, or are already inside the United States, particularly those aliens coming from regions or nations with identified security risks,” Fox Digital reported.
In June, the State Department additionally said student visa applicants must make their social media profiles public.
In addition, the U.S. banned students from more than a dozen countries from applying to study in the U.S. as part of a sweeping travel ban announced in June.
Along with revoking visas, the Trump administration has sued several colleges and frozen federal funding, The Hill reported.
Columbia University agreed in July to pay more than $200 million to settle claims brought by federal government agencies in exchange for the reinstatement of about $400 million in research grants, future funding and other conditions. It also agreed to review its admissions policy for international students, The Washington Post reported.
A Harvard University lawsuit challenging a freeze to its federal grant funding is ongoing. In May, a judge blocked a Trump administration effort to prevent the university from enrolling international students.
