United States | A new Red Scare

Donald Trump wants to deport foreign students merely for what they say

He says his power over immigration overrides the First Amendment

 Policemen arrest student during students and pro-Palestine activists protest.
Photograph: Getty Images
|LOS ANGELES

“EVERY TIME I find one of these lunatics I take away their visa.” That is how Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, last month described the Trump administration’s push to deport foreign university students who had participated in campus activism. Mr Rubio initially suggested that his department had cancelled at least 300 visas. That number increasingly looks out of date as the deportation campaign has spread beyond elite east-coast schools and for conduct beyond protest and speech. More than 100 students in California alone have had their visas yanked—some of them seemingly for infractions as minor as a speeding ticket.

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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “A new Red Scare”

From the April 12th 2025 edition

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