\n<\/p>\n
Secretary of State Marco Rubio estimated that he had signed perhaps more than 300 letters revoking the visas of students, visitors and others to force their expulsion from the United States because of their foreign policy views or criminal activities.<\/p>\n
He has been signing letters daily to revoke visas since taking office in late January, Mr. Rubio told reporters on Thursday night aboard an Air Force passenger jet traveling between Paramaribo, Suriname, and Miami, where he lives with his family. Mr. Rubio was concluding a three-nation tour in the Caribbean and South America.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know actually if it\u2019s primarily student visas,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of visas. They\u2019re visitors to the country. If they\u2019re taking activities that are counter to our foreign, to our national interest, to our foreign policy, we\u2019ll revoke the visa.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he reviewed each case himself before signing off on actions that would be taken by immigration agents. Mr. Rubio said that a visa holder charged with a crime while in the United States should automatically lose their visa. He is also expelling permanent U.S. residents<\/a> by stripping them of their green cards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMy standard: If we knew this information about them before we gave them a visa, would we have allowed them in?\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if the answer is no, then we revoke the visa.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio declined to say how the cases arrived at his desk. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to talk about the process by which we\u2019re identifying it because obviously we\u2019re looking for more people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio has been the most senior aide of President Trump involved in the contentious deportation efforts in communities across the United States. In mid-March, Mr. Rubio finalized<\/a> a deal in which President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador agreed to accept U.S. deportation flights with more than 200 migrants, who were put into a prison there.<\/p>\n At least some of the migrants had fled to the United States from the repressive autocratic government of Venezuela and were not criminals, their lawyers say, but the United States failed to give them due process during their detention and deportation.<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio has also told the Homeland Security Department to detain students or recent graduates for deportation because of what he called their opposition to American foreign policy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He told reporters on Thursday at a news conference in Georgetown, Guyana, that he had revoked the student visa of a Tufts University doctorate student and Fulbright scholar from Turkey<\/a>. The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, was one of several authors of a student newspaper essay<\/a> last year calling for university support of Palestinian rights and divestment from Israel.<\/p>\n After Mr. Rubio\u2019s action, six people in black clothes and some wearing masks \u2014 presumably federal agents \u2014 seized her off a street<\/a> outside her home in Somerville, Mass.<\/p>\n Mr. Rubio has also signed off on stripping the permanent residency status of two other students who were involved in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University: Mahmoud Khalil, born in Syria, and Yunseo Chung, born in South Korea.<\/p>\n