Indian students in US make up 50 pct of those facing visa revocations: Report

According to a report by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), about half of the 327 recent visa revocations collected by the organisation have been of Indian students.

The AILA brief, titled 'The Scope of Immigration Enforcement Actions Against International Students', stated that 50 percent of these students were from India, followed by 14 percent from China.

Students from other countries facing the visa revocation include South Korea, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

The US State Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been screening foreign students' data, including their activism, over the past four months.

Some allege that this screening is done using artificial intelligence, which may lead to inaccurate targeting of students without a criminal history or links to campus protests.

In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the "Catch and Revoke" program to identify and screen student visa holders, including monitoring their social media for evidence of anti-Semitism or support for Palestinians and Hamas.

In a bid to encourage self-deportation of undocumented immigrants, US President Donald Trump has revealed that his administration would offer financial support, including stipends and plane tickets, to those who agree to leave the country on their own.

In a recent interview with Fox Noticias, Trump had said this initiative aims to prioritise the deportation of individuals with serious criminal records, while providing a pathway for "good" individuals to potentially return to the US legally.

Elaborating his plan, Trump had said: "We're going to give them a stipend. We're going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we're going to work with them — if they're good — if we want them back in, we're going to work with them to get them back in as quickly as we can."