Several international students at Lehigh University have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration, according to the school’s student newspaper on Thursday. It is unclear when and why the visas were revoked.
The Trump administration has revoked the visas or changed the legal status of over 600 international students and recent graduates as of Thursday night. A Lafayette College spokesman confirmed that the school is not aware of any student visa terminations.
“The College is monitoring student SEVIS records regularly,” wrote college spokesman Scott Morse in a text message, referencing the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a federal database used to monitor foreign students and visitors. “At present, no records have been terminated and, to the best of our knowledge, no visas have been revoked.”
Lehigh students were informed of the revocations in a community-wide email sent from the school’s provost’s office, according to the student newspaper, The Brown and White. The visa terminations “don’t appear to be connected to student participation in protests or other civic engagement,” according to the publication.
The revocations come just a month after Lehigh and Lafayette, alongside 58 other colleges and universities, received a warning from the Department of Education stemming from antisemitism investigations. Thirty of the 60 institutions that received the warning have since had instances of student visas being revoked or legal status changed as of yesterday.
Lafayette and Lehigh have settled their investigations with the department’s civil rights office over the past 10 months after being found to have responded improperly to antisemitic incidents on their campuses.
Lafayette has not ruled out compliance with federal demands in response to potential threats against funding or students.
Janine Block, Lafayette’s principal designated school official for monitoring the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, did not respond to request for comment.
