State Department Begins Canceling Visas of Pro-Terror Students, Plans To Use AI To Identify Visa-Holding Hamas Sympathizers

The State Department, in its first move to follow through on one of President Trump’s more aggressive approaches to tackling campus antisemitism, has canceled the visa of a foreign student who participated in a pro-terror protest. “Yesterday evening, we revoked the first visa of an alien who was previously cited for criminal behavior in connection with Hamas-supporting disruptions,” the State Department confirmed on Thursday in a statement to Fox News. “This individual was a university student. ICE will proceed with removing this person from the country.” The department did not identify the student or the university due to “legal constraints.” The announcement comes amid reports that the State Department plans to harness artificial intelligence to help identify pro-terror student visa holders. As part of the department’s so-called “catch and revoke” effort, AI technology will scan through thousands of social media accounts in search of content that supports Hamas or other terrorist organizations, senior State Department officials told Axios. The department will also monitor the foreign nationals who have been named in antisemitism lawsuits filed by Jewish students. The State Department’s effort, which officials described as a “whole of government and whole of authority approach” will be supported by both the departments of Justice and Homeland Security. “Those who support designated terrorist organizations, including Hamas, threaten our national security,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, declared on Thursday. “The United States has zero tolerance for foreign visitors who support terrorists. Violators of U.S. law — including international students — face visa denial or revocation, and deportation.”President Trump paved the way for the effort through several executive orders issued during his first month in office. The first order, titled “Protecting The United States From Foreign Terrorists And Other National Security And Public Safety Threats,” calls on federal agencies to revoke the visas of foreigners who “threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology.” Ten days later, Mr. Trump issued an order aimed at combating antisemitism. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Mr. Trump wrote in a fact sheet for the measure. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”The Trump administration has also sought to clamp down on campus antisemitism by threatening to withhold federal grants from universities that fail to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. That measure prohibits federally funded programs from discriminating based on “race, color, or national origin.” In 2004, the protection was clarified to include religion by then-secretary for the Department of Education, Kenneth Marcus.Earlier this week, the Department of Education and two other federal agencies announced that they would be reviewing billions of dollars in federal contracts and grants issued to Columbia University amid an investigation into the school’s “ongoing inaction in the face of relentless harassment of Jewish students.” As part of the probe, Mr. Trump’s antisemitism task force will consider issuing stop work orders for $51.4 million in ongoing government contracts and will evaluate whether the Ivy League university remains eligible to continue to receive more than $5 billion in federal funding commitments. Beyond Columbia, the task force is scheduled to visit nine other universities, including Harvard and New York University, regarding “allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law.”

State Department Begins Canceling Visas of Pro-Terror Students, Plans To Use AI To Identify Visa-Holding Hamas Sympathizers

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