The Trump administration has revoked the visas of at least 10 international students attending college in Colorado, according to two impacted universities.
Six students at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and four students attending the University of Colorado’s Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses recently had their international student visas revoked by federal agencies, the two schools said.
Neither university has identified the students who lost their visas, said what countries they are from, or revealed whether federal officials provided any explanation. The visa revocations come as the Trump administration has cracked down on international students who expressed views opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.
Violeta Chapin, a CU Boulder law professor and expert in immigration law, said that, historically, international students’ visas might be revoked if they disenroll — but offices at the university dedicated to helping such students can get them back on track.
“What we’re seeing now is a far different, unprecedented intrusion by the executive (branch) into this particular area and to be revoking student visas for different reasons than we have seen previously and at higher rates than we have ever seen,” Chapin said Wednesday.
The CU system — the state’s flagship, four-campus university — issued a statement Tuesday confirming the F-1 visas issued to four international students had been revoked by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. F-1 visas allow people to enter the United States as full-time students.
CU currently enrolls 3,802 international students across its four campuses. That’s more than one-third of the 10,363 international students studying at Colorado colleges and universities, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
The visa revocations began last week and none of the CU students have been detained at this point, university spokeswoman Michele Ames said Wednesday morning.
CU is not releasing any information about the students’ “specific circumstances” in order to protect their privacy, the university said. A notice on CU’s International Student and Scholar Services page said in-person advising for international students was canceled Wednesday.
“At CU we are focused on supporting the success of all of our students, including international students,” the university’s statement said. “Each one of our students are seeking to advance their careers and the lives of their families, and we understand the anxieties that visa revocations cause to impacted students. We urge any international student with questions or concerns to reach out to their campus’ international student office.”
Six international students at CSU also have had their visas revoked, the university confirmed. Additional details about the situation were not being shared for privacy reasons, CSU said. The school did not respond to questions from The Denver Post about whether any of those students have been detained by authorities.
A university communication posted over the weekend said “some CSU international students have been impacted by visa revocations and SEVIS terminations issued by the U.S. Department of State.” SEVIS, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, is the web-based system that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses to track student visa information.
CSU urged impacted students to immediately contact the embassy of their home country, the CSU Office of International Programs at 970-491-5917 or isss@colostate.edu.
“Our international community is an integral part of Colorado State University, enriching our campus in countless ways,” the university said. “Please know that CSU deeply values our international student population and is committed to supporting you to the best of our abilities.”
No revocations reported at other Colorado schools
The University of Denver said Wednesday that there has been no ICE activity on its campus and DU has not received any unusual student-information requests from immigration officials.
Metropolitan State University of Denver said that, as of Wednesday, no MSU Denver student F-1 visas had been revoked.
And the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley said it does not provide visa information to protect student privacy.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. State Department has revoked 300 or more visas as the Trump administration largely targets foreign-born students who have objected to Israel’s war on Gaza.
Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in an attack that killed 1,200 people, during which about 250 hostages were seized. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 50,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and destroyed much of the enclave.
Nationally, students linked to pro-Palestinian activism in multiple states have been taken to detention centers by masked immigration officers with little information released as to why they are being held.
“We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist, to tear up our university campuses,” Rubio told reporters last week.
It’s not yet clear whether any Colorado students have been detained by immigration officers or what their visa revocations could mean for them.
Colorado’s most high-profile collegiate activism against the war in Gaza came last year when students set up a long-term encampment on the Auraria Campus in downtown Denver. So far, no students at Auraria — home to MSU Denver, CU Denver and the Community College of Denver — are known to have had their visas revoked.
“Extraordinary departure from typical practice”
Chapin, the immigration law expert, said once international students lose their visas, deportation is imminent.
“Another way we’re seeing this extraordinary departure from typical practice is we’re seeing international students getting detained and locking them up even though immigration is a civil system, not a criminal system,” Chapin said. “What we’re seeing from this administration is a desire to vastly increase the people in detention and spending billions and billions of dollars to do it.”
Chapin encourages international students to take precautions if they’re traveling and ensure all their travel documents are up-to-date and available.
She advised they share their itinerary with family and, if the student is working with a lawyer, make sure they have that lawyer’s contact information.
“We don’t want to panic anybody,” she said. “We have no reason to believe any of our students would be detained, but we also don’t know. We have the revocation of visas for two of our CU Boulder students, and we don’t understand why. Now these things are happening rapidly and they’re happening under much more cover of darkness.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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