The University of Massachusetts Amherst said Friday that five international students enrolled at the school have had their visas revoked by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“The university has learned that, throughout the course of this week and as of tonight, five international students have had their visas revoked and student statuses terminated by the federal government,” UMass Chancellor Javier Reyes said in a letter posted to the university website.
“I regret sending this news so late on a Friday; given that we learned of some of these revocations this evening, I felt it important to share this troubling news at this time.”
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Reyes said the university wasn’t notified of the changes to the students’ visas, “and only became aware as a result of proactive checks in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database. We will continue monitoring SEVIS for further updates.”
UMass Amherst is the largest in the state’s public university system.
University of Massachusetts Amherst students protesting on campus in March. (Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to UMass Amherst for comment.
Earlier this week, the president of Minnesota State University in Mankato said five international students at the university had visas revoked.
The school’s president, Edward Inch, said the school found out after running a database check of international student statuses after the detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis over a drunken driving conviction.
Other colleges around the country, including Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas and the University of Colorado have also reported having international student visas revoked without notice.
University students Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts and Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in separate incidents last month. (Associated Press/Ted Shaffrey)
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to “potential criminal activity.”
Early last month, Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, was arrested for his involvement in anti-Israel protests and alleged support of Hamas.
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And in late March, an Iranian doctoral student at the University of Alabama, whose visa had been revoked in 2023, was arrested in the middle of the night.
Although his visa was revoked, he was told he could stay in the U.S. while he remained a student, his lawyer said.
People gather for a protest in support of Mahmoud Khalil outside a federal courthouse in Newark, N.J., March 28. Khalil’s lawyers are responding to a motion by the government to have Khalil’s case moved to Louisiana. (Stephanie Keith for Fox News Digital)
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The Department of Homeland Security said the student, Alireza Doroudi, “posed significant national security concerns.”
Last month, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Ph.D. student at Tufts University in Massachusetts, was arrested by immigration officers after she wrote an anti-Israel op-ed for the campus newspaper.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.