Anxiety at US colleges as foreign students are detained and visas revoked

LONDON: For the last few weeks, many foreign students living in the US have watched as a sequence of events has repeated itself on their social media feeds: plain-clothes agents appearing unannounced and hauling students off in unmarked cars to detention centres.

Those taken into custody in a string of high-profile student detentions captured on video have not faced any criminal charges and instead appear to have been targeted for involvement in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

The Trump administration has said repeatedly that visas are a "privilege" and can be revoked at any time for a wide variety of reasons.

But the crackdown appears to be far wider than initially thought, with more than 1,000 international students or recent graduates at colleges across the US now having had their visas revoked or legal statuses changed, according to a tracker from Inside Higher Ed, an online news site covering the sector.

For many, the precise reasons are unknown, and universities have often only learned of the changes when checking a government-run database that logs the visa status of international students. The combination of targeted detentions and reports of wide-scale visa revocations have left campuses on edge, from the biggest public universities to elite Ivy League institutions, students and faculty told the BBC.

"I could be next," said one student visa-holder attending Georgetown University.

He's begun carrying around a card in his pocket that lists his constitutional rights, in case he is ever stopped by law enforcement.

Another student in Texas said he's afraid to leave his apartment, even to buy groceries. And at some colleges, departments are being hit as researchers abroad refuse to return to the US.

Most students the BBC spoke to requested anonymity out of fear that having their names in the media could make them a target. The reasons for visa cancellations vary. In some cases, criminal records appear to be a factor. 

Other instances have reportedly included minor legal infractions like driving over the speed limit. But "a lot" of those targeted have been involved in protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio himself has said. It is part of a wider White House push to crack down on protesters whom officials say created an unsafe environment for Jewish students on many campuses.