The Department of Homeland Security has revoked the visas of several University of Kentucky graduate students, campus leaders said Friday evening.
The move affects “a small number of international graduate students at UK,” President Eli Capilouto said in a news release. The number of students affected was not specified. It comes as the Trump Administration has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at colleges and universities around the country.
“We recognize the impact visa and/or status revocation has on our students,” Capilouto said.
“I know, too, that this news will surface many questions. We are working to understand changing federal policies that are impacting many college campuses and are encouraging our international students to reach out to International Student and Scholar Services with immigration-related questions or concerns.”
A F-1 visa grants a student the ability to travel to the United States to study at a college or university.
According to the Associated Press, students who have their visas revoked are being ordered to leave the country immediately.
“The university will always comply with the law,” Capilouto said. “We also will make abundantly clear that our more than 1,300 international students and scholars are valued members of this special community.”
When asked if UK students who had learned their visas had been revoked would be allowed to stay enrolled and how many students were affected, UK spokesperson Jay Blanton told the Herald-Leader on Friday evening he was unable to provide additional information.
Other universities in the region reported similar instances of student visas at risk, including the University of Cincinnati and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, news outlets reported.
At Tennessee, four current students and one former student who was working on campus had their visas revoked.
During his campaign for president, Donald Trump promised to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests. In March, Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and held for deportation. It was the first publicly known arrest of Trump’s crackdown on college students.
Also in March, the U.S. Department of Education announced it would be investigating more than 50 universities for their diversity, equity and inclusion programs — including UK.
The university later announced it had cut ties with the organization it believed sparked the investigation, The Ph.D. Project, a networking organization for doctoral students.
At the time, Capilouto said there were no UK students actively engaged with the program other than attending an annual conference.
