Trump's student visa crackdown hits Virginia, 20+ revoked
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Federal immigration authorities have revoked the visas of at least 25 international students and three recent graduates from Virginia universities.
Why it matters: The lives of international students are being upended as the Trump administration expands its revocation of student visas nationwide, often without immediate explanation.
The big picture: The affected Virginia students reported so far are from four schools: VCU, UVA, Virginia Tech and George Mason.
- That means the actual figure could be far greater, as not every university is publicly sharing whether its students have been impacted — and many are finding out by monitoring their international student databases.
- But those four schools enroll over half of the more than 21,000 international students in higher education statewide.
State of play: UVA was the first Virginia school to publicly announce the revocation of a student visa, doing so on April 4.
- Virginia Tech shared Wednesday that seven current international students and two alumni had their legal status terminated.
- VCU told Axios on Thursday that two international students and one recent grad received visa terminations.
- George Mason has the most revocations so far — 15 as of Thursday — a spokesperson told Axios.
Between the lines: This comes weeks after the Trump administration made international headlines for detaining Columbia University graduates and Tufts University student Rumeysa Öztürk over pro-Palestinian activism.
- State university officials did not respond by time of publication about whether any of the students stripped of their visas participated in protests or had any criminal record.
- But Virginia Tech and UVA, in their statements, said they don't know why the visa terminations happened.
Flashback: Statewide, police arrested over 125 people — including dozens of students — last year during protests at VCU, UVA, Virginia Tech and Mary Washington.
- Although George Mason students didn't have on-campus protests, some participated in an encampment at GW in D.C.
- UVA and George Mason are also among the universities the Trump administration is targeting for alleged antisemitism following protests criticizing Israel's war in Gaza.
What we're watching: If the widespread student visa revocations continue, universities that rely on high tuition fees from international students could suffer financially.
- International students contributed over $807 million to the U.S. economy during the 2023-24 school year, per an analysis from NAFSA, a nonprofit focused on international education.
- George Mason, which has the most international students in Virginia, accounted for a quarter of that.
Go deeper: What to know about the wave of student visa cancellations