WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Federal authorities have detained an international student studying at Tufts University near Boston and have revoked their visa, the university said in a statement Tuesday night.
Tufts said the graduate student was taken into U.S. custody from an off-campus apartment building in Somerville, Massachusetts and that it had no further details about the incident or the circumstances surrounding the student’s status.
Representatives for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement could not be immediately reached for comment on the university’s statement.
A lawyer representing the student could also not be immediately reached.
The detention is the latest move by Republican U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration targeting international students as it seeks to crack down on immigration, including ramping up immigration arrests and sharply restricting border crossings.
Trump and his top diplomat Marco Rubio in particular have pledged to deport foreign pro-Palestinian protesters, accusing them of supporting Hamas militants, posing hurdles for U.S. foreign policy and being antisemitic.
At Columbia University, student protester and lawful permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil was arrested this month. He is legally challenging his detention after Trump, without evidence, accused him of supporting Hamas, which Khalil denies.
Federal immigration officials are also seeking to detain a Korean American Columbia University student, who is a legal permanent U.S. resident and has participated in pro-Palestinian protests, a move blocked by the courts for now.
Earlier this month, a Lebanese doctor and assistant professor at Brown University in Rhode Island was denied re-entry to the U.S. and deported to Lebanon after Trump’s administration alleged her phone contained photos “sympathetic” to Hezbollah. Dr. Rasha Alawieh said she does not support the militant group but held regard for its slain leader because of her religion.
Trump’s administration has also targeted students at Cornell University in New York and Georgetown University in Washington.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Susan Heavey, Editing by William Maclean)
