US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday the State Department may have revoked more than 300 visas and warned that the Trump administration was looking every day for "these lunatics" after Washington this week detained and revoked the visa of a Turkish student at Tufts University.
Rubio's comments were in response to a question about Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who was detained on Tuesday evening in Somerville, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, by masked and plainclothes agents. Her detention was the latest Trump administration action against a foreign student who had voiced support for Palestinians in Israel's war in Gaza.
"It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," Rubio said at a press conference in Guyana, without elaborating on whose visas had been revoked.
"At some point, I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them, but we're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up."
The top US diplomat confirmed the State Department revoked Ozturk's visa but did not address details when asked what specific actions Ozturk had taken that merited such a move.
Trump Administration revoking visa of Turkish student
US immigration authorities detained Ozturk on Thursday and revoked her visa and is the first known immigration of a Boston-area student engaged in such activism to be carried out by Trump's administration, which has detained or sought to detain several foreign-born students who are legally in the US and have been involved in pro-Palestinian protests.
The actions have been condemned as an assault on free speech, though the Trump administration argues that certain protests are antisemitic and can undermine US foreign policy.
The 30-year-old Turkish national was taken into custody near her home in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Tuesday evening while she was heading to meet with friends to break her Ramadan fast, according to her lawyer, Mahsa Khanbabai.