Ten international students and recent graduates of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have had their visas revoked or terminated in recent weeks, according to information shared Wednesday by the university.
UWM joins a cacophony of universities sharing the effects on students of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigrant and international communities.
The university says the students and graduates impacted have not been provided a rationale for the change in status.
In an email to faculty and staff Wednesday, outgoing Chancellor Mark Mone said, "There is no reason to believe the terminations are specific to participation in free speech events or political activity."
Ameen Atta doesn’t buy it.
He’s a student and an organizer with the UWM Popular Coalition for Palestine. He feels international students are being targeted for protesting the war in Gaza and for speaking out against the Trump administration. UWM students erected an encampment in support of Palestinians last school year.
“Anything that this administration does not like, and does not agree with, they will come after. As we’ve seen some public detainments of these students," Atta said.
None of the UWM students have been detained, unlike in the high-profile cases of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Öztürk. Both were detained by ICE agents while out in public.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked visas from 300 alleged student protestors in March
The terminations come just one month before the end of the spring semester. It throws students' and graduates' futures into chaos: Visa termination typically requires the individual to leave the country immediately. There is no grace period.
Forty students across the Universities of Wisconsin, including 26 students and employees at UW-Madison, have seen their visas revoked or terminated, according to school officials. Many have reportedly received little to no explanation.
Tim Muth, a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin, says the government has discretion in who visas are awarded to, but once a student obtains a visa, they have certain rights. He said arbitrarily cancelling those visas amounts to an attack on international students.
“My real concern is that international students are going to stop coming to Wisconsin and the universities all across the U.S.," he says. "We're going to lose all the gifts that they enrich our communities with. They’re going to be fearful of the kind of treatment that they are receiving right now.”
Muth says the visa terminations signal a broader anti-immigrant sentiment from the Trump administration.
“I think we can only attribute it to an anti-immigration stance broadly of this administration. It’s not just undocumented or unauthorized immigration that this administration is opposed to," he says. "But that it is legal immigration as well, as exemplified by these students.”
On March 27, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department was revoking the visas of more than 300 students across the country. Rubio said at the time that the students impacted were alleged demonstrators who participated in pro-Palestinian protests and encampments opposing the war in Gaza by Israel.
"We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses," Rubio said at a press conference announcing the moves.
UWM students erected a pro-Palestinian encampment in spring 2024 that lasted two weeks. Activists voluntarily removed the encampment after reaching a deal with the university to allow protestors to request disclosure and divestment details in Israeli companies by the university.
UWM students are 'terrified' on campus after visa revocations, ICE arrests in Milwaukee
It's not immediately clear whether the UWM students whose visas have been revoked participated in the demonstrations, or whether any have faced unrelated criminal charges that may have led to visa termination.
Chris Van Valkenberg is a UWM sophomore and a leader with Students for a Democratic Society. They say UWM’s leadership has been vague so far about how it will protect students.
“Students are terrified on campus," they said. "They don’t feel safe going to classes, or going to their dorms, or really going anywhere on campus with the zero clarification of whether or not ICE is going to be allowed on campus from our administration.”
Student groups have launched a petition calling for UWM to designate itself a sanctuary campus for immigrants and international students. The petition has gathered around 300 signatures.
UW-Madison has more than 8,000 international students. UWM has around 1,400 international students, according to data from fall 2024. A majority of those students have come to study from India, South Korea and Bangladesh.
Are you a student impacted by the visa terminations or revocations? You can contact WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal at (414) 251-9363 to share your experience.
WUWM is a service of UW-Milwaukee.
