U.S. authorities, amid intensified visa revocations, have revoked the visa of a Kashmiri student and an organiser for the Palestinian movement in Texas. The name of the student is withheld on request after a request from family due to fear of repercussions.
Hundreds of international students in Texas have recently discovered that their visas were revoked, with their immigration status marked as ‘terminated’ in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the database used to monitor international students.
“I am now no longer a student as ICE has revoked my visa and as of now, I have fled and am in now what is political exile,” the student of the University of Texas at Austin, in a statement issued.
She expressed that the reason for her political persecution, and that of others, is not due to any moral superiority, but because the state seeks to “crush any and all support for Palestine.”
“We are being used as examples to show what the state is capable of,” she said.
“What must I do? Do I run? Where do I go? What about school? What about my career, my future, my life? Do I stay and risk being brutalised and detained by ICE? Do I live my life like this, constantly paranoid, constantly unable to sleep, watching the door as I wait to see if I will be kidnapped? That any person near me might be ICE, that I might turn and see handcuffs emerge, that an unmarked van might roll up and I have to run, that I’ll run and run to someone but to where, to whom, to do what? Can I continue to have nightmares of being detained in an ICE facility, away from my comrades and my family, isolated and alone, forever chained by this Zionist state?” she asked.
She alleged that the University of Texas at Austin “abandoned” international students by allowing ICE to revoke their visas.
Raised in the United States from the age of six, she became politically conscious following the colonial annexation of her homeland, Kashmir, in 2019, and was further galvanised by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
During this period, she was introduced to revolutionary figures and movements, including Assata Shakur, Leila Khaled, and the Algerian Revolution, according to her statement.
At the age of sixteen, she formally entered activism by organising a protest in her hometown of El Paso during the attacks on Sheikh Jarrah. Between the ages of eighteen and nineteen, she mobilised in Dallas and subsequently continued her advocacy for Palestine as a student at the University of Texas at Austin. In April 2024, during the occupation and encampment protests, she was among the many individuals who were arrested.
She said that she made the decision to run, to escape, and not to stay and allow ICE to detain her, “that after how several white men and women pressed their knees and their hands on me pushing me down while arresting me, after how Austin police pulled my shirt up exposing my midriff and skin, my legs, to all their leering eyes to see in a ‘search’, after how Austin police dragged me to a solitary confinement cell and threw me in there for hours for requesting for religious accommodations…”
“After how my worthless university clearly had no spine and allowed me to suffer, was I going to allow ICE to kidnap me and brutalise me in even more horrific ways? I had already come to a conclusion, one that I had delayed and denied in my heart for months: I would not allow ICE to kidnap me. I ran that Friday and hid for a week – figuring out my plans till I could reasonably secure some sort of transportation out,” she added.
She said, “Perhaps the state may think it has won, and perhaps some of you reading this might believe this is a desperate situation — that my exile, and that of many others, means the end of the movement for Palestine, that there is no victory in sight.”
She continued, “No such thing will occur — our movement has survived and prevailed despite intense brutalisation and suppression, and despite the incompetence of national and regional leadership.”
“The oppressed throughout history have fought unimaginable oppression and tyranny — against all odds,” she added.
She also highlighted that she does not want her persecution to be framed solely as a Trump-led initiative or reduced to a matter of “free speech,” questioning, “Did Democrats not deport people? Did Obama and Biden not persecute and surveil BLM activists?”
Hundreds of students and recent graduates have seen their visas revoked by immigration officials since United States President Donald Trump took office for a second time on January 20, 2025, with several also arrested.
The ongoing crackdown on overseas students by the Department of State (DOS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had a disproportionate impact on Indian students.
According to a report by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), out of 327 reports of visa revocations and SEVIS terminations, 50 percent of the students were from India.
