Five international students at Minnesota university have visas revoked

A few days after an international student was detained by immigration authorities, five other students at Minnesota State University, Mankato have seen their student visas terminated.

The development was announced in a statement late Wednesday by the university’s president, Edward Inch. He said neither the university nor the students received notification of the termination of their records within the Student Exchange Visitor Information System by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The changes were only discovered after the university “ran a status check.”

Jameel Haque, a professor of history and the director of the school’s Kessel Peace Institute, attended an assembly Wednesday in which Inch revealed the developments. He said the students have not been detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Instead, they have been asked to self-deport within 60 days.

One of the students who lost their visa was close to completing their studies, Inch said at the student assembly on Wednesday. “We’re going to do our best to ensure the students are able to complete their classes,” he said.

Inch said in his statement that the university is assisting with immigration attorney referrals to the affected students and is connecting with all other international students to inform them of their rights and resources available to them.

“These are troubling times, and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before,” Inch said. “I also ask for our community to stand together in support of our students, our faculty, and our staff as a shared and valued learning community.”

The move comes after a wave of high-profile arrests of international students at universities across the country, some of whom participated in campus activism surrounding Israel’s war in Gaza.

In the last week, two university students in Minnesota have been detained by ICE – an unidentified student at Minnesota State University, Mankato, and another, Doğukan Günaydin, at the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

It is unclear why the Mankato student was detained. But earlier this week, Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that Günaydin’s arrest was not because of activism but because of a prior drunk driving conviction.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week that 300 student visas had been revoked and argued the country had a right to do so for students who “participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.