News
Nearly 150 Students Have Had Visas Revoked and Could Face Deportation
At least 147 international students were abruptly stripped of their ability to stay in the United States in recent days, according to universities and media reports, sowing fear among students and confusion at schools scrambling to help students facing detention and possible deportation.
The moves targeted students at a wide range of universities, from private institutions like Harvard and Stanford to public ones like the University of Texas at Austin and Minnesota State University-Mankato. The University of California had dozens of cases reported across its campuses.
Several immigration lawyers told The New York Times that they began receiving frantic emails and calls late last week from students who had been notified by the State Department or their universities that their visas or statuses had been terminated without clear justifications.
Criminal convictions have always put students at risk of losing their statuses, but traffic infractions and participation in political actions have rarely been cited as grounds.
In some cases, immigration officers have arrested international students related to their involvement in pro-Palestinian causes. In other cases, students had committed legal infractions, such as driving over the speed limit or while intoxicated, often years ago, several immigration lawyers said in interviews.
But lawyers said the Trump administration had often given no reason at all, leaving them to guess why students were targeted.
“This upends all usual practice by the government,” said Miriam Feldblum, chief executive of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which represents more than 570 public and private colleges and universities across the country. “They are terminating students’ statuses in a way they have never done before and with virtually no explanation and little recourse to correct or appeal by either the institution or the students.”
Late last month, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, ordered diplomats to scour the social media postings of some visa applicants to keep away from the country those suspected of criticizing the United States and Israel.
The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The recent moves add more anxiety to an already precarious environment for international students and scholars in the United States. Advocates for international education worry that such moves will chill the ability of U.S. schools to attract foreign students.
Last month, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate student who was involved in pro-Palestinian activism during campus protests last year, was arrested at his apartment and sent to Louisiana for possible deportation, despite being a permanent resident. Shortly after, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, was detained by masked agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while she was on the way to meet friends. Ms. Ozturk, who had written a pro-Palestinian opinion essay, was also taken to Louisiana.
The moves aimed at international students fit with the Trump administration’s broader policy agenda of reducing the number of immigrants, both legal and undocumented, and of forcing universities to crack down on what the president says is rampant antisemitism on campuses.
The United States issued more than 400,000 visas to students in 2024.
Some of the students targeted recently had committed offenses like speeding or driving while intoxicated, the lawyers said. They said that such offenses did not ordinarily rise to deportation.
Without a visa an international student becomes undocumented, and must leave the United States or risk being detained and placed in deportation proceedings. Several attorneys said that they had clients who had opted to leave the country out of fear that they could be arrested by agents from ICE, the Homeland Security agency charged with carrying out Mr. Trump’s pledge of mass deportations.
Some of the affected students are graduate students who have doctoral dissertations that they are supposed to defend next month. Others are undergraduates. Still others have completed their studies and have been working in the United States, under a special program that allows recent international graduates to remain in the country for up to three years if employed.
“This is totally unprecedented,” said Fuji Whittenburg, an immigration lawyer in Calabasas, Calif., who has been practicing law for 20 years. “I have never seen anything close to this.”
She added, “A brush with law enforcement that didn’t necessarily result in an arrest or a conviction is all it took.”
Ms. Whittenburg said that one of her clients was an Indian national who got a DUI when he was studying in the United States more than a decade ago. When he applied for a second student visa more recently, he disclosed the charge to U.S. consular authorities in his home country. They ultimately granted him the visa to pursue further studies in the United States.
Harvard advised international students last week during a webinar to reconsider traveling abroad, according to The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. The staff also warned students that pro-Palestinian speech could be risky.
During the webinar, Jason Corral, an attorney, said there seemed to be a change from President Trump’s first term, according to The Crimson. “The difference is we have seen situations where it seems as though people’s visas are being revoked simply based on their speech or protests,” he said.
In an alert, a coalition of national student media organizations urged student media last week to “minimize harm,” citing threats to student speech.
On Monday a letter sent to Michael Drake, the president of the University of California, and others by the Council of University of California Faculty Association said the university should help students who had been targeted, arguing it had a “moral obligation” to protect students and scholars’ legal rights.
The letter, which was co-signed by the University Council AFT, a teaching faculty and librarians union, called on the university to allow deported or detained students to continue their programs remotely, to continue providing stipends, salaries and fellowships and to help students in the courts.
Several students have sued the government to challenge their terminations, and lawsuits are expected to pile up.
Stacy Tolchin, an immigration lawyer in Pasadena, Calif., filed two suits in federal court in Los Angeles on Saturday, and said that she would be filing more this week.
In one case, the American Civil Liberties Union is representing a Chinese doctoral student at Dartmouth College who has been studying computer science. According to a complaint filed on April 4, the student, Xiaotian Liu, had not committed any crimes or participated in any protests.
The college told the student in an email that this was “not standard or normal procedure,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New Hampshire.
“Xiaotian’s dream of finishing his doctoral program and obtaining a Ph.D. at Dartmouth College is now in severe jeopardy,” the lawsuit said.
News
Trump’s name must come off the Kennedy Center by June 12
Lawyers for what is currently called the Trump Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are instructing staff to immediately begin switching the name of the facility back to its original title.
The instructions, laid out in a memo sent Thursday by the center’s general counsel and obtained by CBS News, are the first official signal the national arts hub is complying with a federal court order to drop President Trump’s name and reconsider plans to close for two years of renovations.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper last week ruled in favor of Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a member of the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees, who filed a lawsuit challenging the institution’s name change and plans to close for two years for extensive repairs beginning this summer.
Cooper found the board had overstepped its authority and ordered the president’s name to be removed from “the institution’s title, as represented on the façade of the Center, any other physical or digital signage, and official materials.”
The memo to staff Thursday said staff “must immediately change email signatures, letterhead, and other documents to reflect the name as ‘The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,’ or ‘Kennedy Center.’”
Changes to interior and exterior signage and any furniture carrying the current name must be switched back by next Friday, according to the memo.
The Kennedy Center didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The memo also says center officials still are “considering their options and will provide further guidance shortly” on whether the center will remain open after July 5, when extensive renovations costing $257 million are set to begin.
In his order, Cooper agreed renovations to the arts center are “sorely needed,” but he wrote his preliminary injunction does not “categorically” bar the board from closing the Kennedy Center, “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.”
“By way of this opinion, the Court does not purport to dictate how the Center should be run, nor does it prescribe any particular plan for the institution — construction, closure, or otherwise — moving forward,” he wrote. “It simply holds the Kennedy Center Board to certain minimum requirements imposed by law. Beyond that, the Court will let the parties play on.”
In the early weeks of his second term, Mr. Trump replaced several members of the center’s Board of Trustees with senior members of his administration and close allies, who then elected him as chair.
In December, the Kennedy Center’s board voted to change the performing arts institution’s name to The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Within hours, the Kennedy Center’s website was updated to read “The Trump Kennedy Center” and crews went to work adding Mr. Trump’s name to the building’s facade. But lawmakers and legal scholars said such a change required congressional action.
Several artists who were set to perform at the institution canceled performances and the executive director of the National Symphony Orchestra, which performs at the Kennedy Center, left for a new job.
News
National Guard has done little to reduce violent crime in D.C., a new study finds
National Guard members stand watch near the Lincoln Memorial on the morning of Memorial Day in Washington, DC, May 25, 2026.
Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images
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Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. has reduced petty property crimes, but has had little to no effect on violent crime, despite the high cost to taxpayers, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Niskanen Center.
The study’s findings were published just weeks after federal officials announced that the number of troops in D.C. is set to double this summer to 5,000 as part of a “summer surge” of law enforcement ahead of events planned for America’s 250th birthday celebration.
Trump deployed the National Guard to D.C. last August, as part of the administration’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force, which he said was an effort to reduce crime and beautify the city. The task force includes hundreds of federal law enforcement — including immigration enforcement — working in conjunction with local police. It’s an approach that Trump previously said he wants to carry out in “many cities,” and already has in places like Memphis and New Orleans.
There are currently around 2,800 National Guard members deployed to D.C. from both the city itself and about a dozen other states, all of which have Republican governors. In contrast to other controversial National Guard deployments by Trump during his second term, the president has the authority over the Guard in D.C.
Guard members do not legally have the power to carry out arrests, but can detain individuals.
Troops — many of whom are armed — are largely carrying out what are called “high visibility patrols” to make their presence known around federal property and in residential areas, parks and city metro stations in an effort to free up D.C. police to redeploy to higher-crime areas. The report found that generally hasn’t happened.
Instead, researchers found that the deployment led to a 24% drop in “opportunistic” crimes — like property crimes and vehicle break-ins. But the presence of the Guard had no effect on violent crimes, including robberies, which were already on a downward trend before Trump came back into office.
“What the Guard brought was a massive, sudden shock from the visible presence of uniformed military personnel on the streets of Washington almost overnight,” researchers wrote, calling the deployment of the Guard a “blunt and expensive instrument.”
A recent assessment by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that it costs the federal government around $1.5 million per day for the current number of troops deployed to D.C.
“I think on balance the National Guard’s deployment is not a failure, there is success in what they’ve done. But I guess the point that we try to make is: compared to what?” says Richard Hahn, one of the authors of the study. “You could get the same or better outcomes, possibly much better outcomes, for much cheaper, if you just were very thoughtful about policing.”
In response to NPR’s request for comment about the study, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that it “should not be taken seriously.”
“The President’s Safe and Beautiful Task Force and National Guard presence have driven down crime, beautified the city, and improved quality of life for countless individuals,” Jackson said, without providing any evidence.
It’s unclear when the planned “summer surge” would end, or if the number of National Guard troops in the city would return to their current levels in the fall.
“Our message today is that we’re not done. We are not satisfied. We are not content with good. We are coming for perfection, and we won’t be done until we reclaim every last inch of ground on anyone seeking to do harm in our nation’s capital,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald said when announcing the surge.
NPR reached out to task force officials behind the Guard deployment for clarity on when the surge might start or end, but did not receive an immediate response.
News
How Each House Member Voted on the Iran War Powers Resolution
Vote
Total
Democrats
Republicans
215
211
4
208
0
208
The House on Wednesday passed a measure to direct President Trump withdraw U.S. forces from Iran or win congressional approval to continue military operations there. The vote was the fourth of its kind in the chamber since the war began, the previous three having failed.
A vote on this measure was originally scheduled for last month but was pulled by House Republican leaders after it became clear they lacked the votes at the time to defeat it because of several members’ absences. Several Republicans were also absent on Wednesday, but party leaders were unable to delay the vote any longer.
Votes fell mostly along party lines, with the exception of four Republicans, who voted with Democrats to pass the measure. Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, who had previously voted with Republicans, flipped and voted with his party.
Republicans who voted against their party
The House vote came after four Senate Republicans last month broke from their party to advance a measure to assert the legislature’s role in authorizing the war. The Senate had rejected seven other similar measures, but Republicans in both chambers have expressed increased uneasiness with the conflict as it wears on.
Even if a war powers resolution passed in both the House and Senate, it would be subject to an all-but-certain veto by Mr. Trump, which would need a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override. Beyond that, the president and his senior aides have frequently dismissed efforts by Congress to rein in his war powers, saying they are unconstitutional.
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