Education | The Indian Express
Amid increasing scrutiny of international students, the United States may now revoke student visas for minor traffic violations. According to a report by the Associated Press, international students found committing offenses such as speeding could face immediate visa cancellation. This would result in the termination of their F-1 visa status, requiring them to leave the country promptly.
The report further highlights that student visas are being revoked for a range of reasons — often with little or no prior notice to the students or their institutions. Prestigious universities, including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, UCLA, and Ohio State University, have reportedly seen cases where students lost their legal status due to minor traffic infractions.
The report also added that some colleges are yet to seek answers from the department as the reason for canceling the student visa remains unclear to them.
“What you’re seeing happening with international students is really a piece of the much greater scrutiny that the Trump administration is bringing to bear on immigrants of all different categories,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute to AP.
Various college officials and students got information about the revocation by checking the federal database and seeing changes to an individual’s immigration status.
In 2023-24, (the US government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30), the US received a total of 6.79 lakh applications for F-1 visas, of which 2.79 lakh (41%) were denied. This is an increase from 2022-23, when 2.53 lakh applications (36%) of a total of 6.99 lakh were turned down.
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While the US State Department did not share data on the country-wise refusal rate for F-1 visas, The Indian Express had reported on December 9 last year that the number of student visas issued to Indians in the first nine months of 2024 had decreased by 38% as compared to the corresponding period in 2023.
According to the data, the percentage of student visa denials increased even as the absolute number of applications from across all countries dipped over the last decade. During this period, the total number of applications peaked at 8.56 lakh in 2014-15, but saw a steady dip in the next few years, till it hit a low of 1.62 lakh in the Covid year of 2019-2020.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
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