This story has been updated.
The federal government has revoked more than 50 visas for international students at Connecticut colleges and universities, raising alarms among students, professors, administrators and lawmakers across the state.
On Monday, the University of Connecticut confirmed that thirteen international students have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration. The Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, which represents 14 higher education institutions, said at least 40 visas had been terminated among students at its member schools.
The revocations are part of a government effort that has left hundreds of students across the country at risk for deportation. The State Department announced on March 27 that it had revoked more than 300 students visas across the U.S.
Roughly a dozen college students across the country have also been detained by the government, including the high-profile case of Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student from Turkey who was taken into custody in late March and is being held in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana. Ozturk was targeted for co-writing a 2024 op-ed in the student newspaper critical of the university’s response to the Israel-Gaza war.
According to UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz, the students at Connecticut’s flagship university who’ve had their visas revoked include six undergraduates, six graduate students and one person in a post-graduate professional program. In an emailed statement, Reitz said none of the individuals had been given a reason for why their visas were revoked. UConn has a total of 3,450 international students.
Reitz also said UConn could not provide legal representation for the students. “The University cannot devote resources to funding or otherwise supporting what would be considered the personal costs of individual students and employees based on their association with UConn. This would be using public resources to provide a private benefit not available to the general public,” the statement read.
Reitz’s email added that university leaders are “committed to doing anything we can to support our students, faculty, and staff on this or any issue.”
Last week, Ozan Say, Director of Yale University Office of International Students and Scholars, confirmed that two students at Yale also had their visas revoked by federal officials. An article in the Yale Daily News reported last Friday that the number had risen to four.
Jennifer Widness, president of CCIC, the group representing independent colleges in the state, said in an email she did not have any further details on the 40-plus students at its member institutions whose visas had been terminated.
Other Connecticut universities declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment from the Connecticut Mirror. Widness said many schools haven’t been responding to press inquiries “in an effort to protect student privacy.”
Sen. Derek Slap, D-West Hartford, who co-chairs the legislature’s Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee, called the situation “very distressing.”
“ It’s not about public safety. It’s not about national security … I think it’s just a part of a continued attack on both immigration and then higher education,” Slap said.
The senator added that if visa revocations end up discouraging international students from studying in the U.S, that could have a negative effect on domestic students as well. “A lot of these international students pay full tuition, and help subsidize the cost of college education for other students,” he said.
“Right now … the United States is really the higher education capital of the world,” Slap said. “And so if that starts to change, there’s going to be a shift [in] cost to domestic students, who are going to end up having to pay more.”
Rep. Greg Haddad, D-Mansfield, Slap’s co-chair, said in a statement that there had been “no credible evidence” that any of the students who had their visas revoked had “violated the terms of their stay.”
“No one should face the threat of deportation for voicing opinions contrary to those held by the current presidential administration. This unprecedented action is wrong,” he said.
In an emailed statement, Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, a ranking member on the Higher Education Committee, was considered. “Rather than speculating and drawing conclusions about ‘attacks’, how about we get the facts first?” he said. “We will await those details. At least I will.”
This story was updated with comments from state Sen. Henri Martin, R-Bristol, and Jennifer Widness of the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges.