Marco Rubio using AI to cancel visas of foreign students who support Hamas
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is directing the State Department to conduct a review of foreign students who express support for Hamas using a new cutting-edge process.
The State Department is reviewing foreign student visa holders' social media accounts with artificial intelligence (AI) to determine if these pupils have displayed sympathy for Hamas.
Officials from the department disclosed the new program to Axios, revealing that the 'Catch and Revoke' plan is hunting for students who have been supportive of the group following their October 7, 2023 surprise attack on Israel.
Since the horrific attack, anti-Israel protests have sprung up across the nation, including most recently at Columbia University and Barnard College in Manhattan—a university hotbed of pro-Gaza activism.
State Department officials also shared that they will soon review foreign student visa holders who were arrested though allowed to stay in the country.
This AI-enabled review will also look for clues in news articles about the protests which have been on and off for the past year and a half.
Already officials have reviewed 100,000 individuals in the Student Exchange Visitor System.
'We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration,' one official told the outlet.
Pro-Palestinian student protesters demonstrate outside Barnard College in New York on February 27, 2025, the morning after pro-Palestinian student protesters stormed a Barnard College building to protest the expulsion last month of two students who interrupted a university class on Israel
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department are reviewing the visas of foreign students who have been arrested
The evidence 'suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement was taken during the Biden regime,' they shared.
Under Trump and Rubio, the administration is now taking a posture to capitalize on available tools to identify those who have expressed support for Hamas.
'It would be negligent for the department that takes national security seriously to ignore publicly available information about [visa] applicants in terms of AI tools,' the official shared.
'AI is one of the resources available to the government that's very different from where we were technologically decades ago,' they noted.
Images or posts that simply appear to be 'pro-Hamas' or that are supportive of the October 7 attack could be reason for visa revocation.
'Under President Trump, the Immigration Nationality Act is great again,' the official proclaimed.
The sentiment is in line with that of Trump who earlier this week demanded that federal dollars stop flowing to schools that allow protests.
'All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,' he wrote on social media following the recent take over of Barnard College.
A Hamas flag spotted at a pro-Palestine protest in New York on February 26, 2025
Pro-Palestinian student protesters face police as they demonstrate outside Barnard College in New York on February 27, 2025, the morning after pro-Palestinian student protesters stormed a Barnard College building to protest the expulsion last month of two students who interrupted a university class on Israel
On Wednesday a group of over 50 students stormed and occupied a campus building and assaulted and injured a staff member, sending them to the hospital.
The NYPD made several arrests on Thursday as the masked anti-Israel demonstrators chanted 'Free Palestine.'
Trump indicated that the protests would no longer be tolerated.
'Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came,' the president wrote. 'American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.'
In the 2023-2024 academic year, anti-Israel activism on U.S. campuses tallied 2,637 anti-Israel incidents of assault, vandalism, harassment according to a published by the Anti-Defamation League.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14471541/marco-rubio-canceling-visas-foreigners-hamas-support.html
