The Trump administration has gone to war with liberal universities during their early months in the White House. Universities have served as an incubator for leftist radicalism for decades and within the past few years, many Americans have been alarmed by the foreign students rioting on college campuses across the country.

The anti-Israel protests have brought the issue front and center on the national stage, causing growing concern. Americans have watched Columbia University’s Butler library be taken over, University of Washington have a building vandalized and burned, and so many other colleges be conquered by pro-Hamas activists. Many times, foreign students like the now infamous Mahmoud Khalil — allowed into the United States on student visas — were at the forefront of the conflict.

Because of the campus anarchy, in large part caused by foreign students, the Trump administration cracked down. Homeland Security terminated Harvard University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program Certification. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem pointed out, “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments. Harvard had plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused. They have lost their Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification as a result of their failure to adhere to the law.” Back in March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said over 300 students had their visas revoked. More recent reports suggest the number is much higher now, with some estimates reaching thousands of students.

Back in May, the visa application interviews were temporarily halted because of the growing concerns over foreign students. This month, the State Department reopened the student visa application process, but with new obligations. The State Department released new requirements announcing all applicants will have their social media subject to “comprehensive and thorough vetting.”

The announcement said, “Every visa adjudication is a national security decision. The United States must be vigilant during the visa issuance process to ensure that those applying for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans and our national interests, and that all applicants credibly establish their eligibility for the visa sought, including that they intend to engage in activities consistent with the terms for their admission.”

Politico reported consular offices at American embassies were instructed to search for “any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States.” They also were told to flag “Advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security” and “support for unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence.”

Many Democrats have protested the administration’s moves from the beginning. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led a cohort of 35 Democratic senators criticizing the Trump administration for revoking some student visas. In a letter to Rubio and Noem, the Democratic senators wrote, “Students who have entered through our legal immigration system and followed the law remain unsure of what, if any, steps they may take to maintain their status and safeguard themselves from immigration enforcement.” The problem with such comments is that students who did not violate the law or openly support terrorism were not being targeted by the administration. The senators were openly defending foreign students who were committing acts of violence or attacking the United States.

The letter also demanded that they “immediately prioritize law enforcement actions that keep us safe, not those that threaten First Amendment protected activities, and to take steps to ensure student visas are not threatened or terminated due to students exercising their constitutional rights.” 

The Democrats’ position makes a fatal mistake by presupposing that foreign students have the right to be in the U.S. A student visa provides temporary permission to be in the United States to study at American colleges. The government is not forced to allow foreign students into the country and reserves the right to deny students for a plethora of reasons including national security concerns.

When questioned on whether the administration was restricting free speech by rejecting visas, Secretary Rubio said, “We can deny you that visa. We can deny you that — if you tell us when you apply, ‘Hi, I’m trying to get into the United States on a student visa, I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that rapes teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages’ — if you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, ‘And by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities’ — if you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa.”

The debate is not about the foreigners’ rights, but rather whether the U.S. has the sovereignty to determine who is permitted entry into the nation. Rubio added, “This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with. No one has a right to a student visa.” Students who are committing crimes, or openly advocating for terrorist organizations, should not be permitted into the country. Tightening the interview process and monitoring student applicants for anti-American comments can help protect national security while also preventing dangerous ideas from continuing to permeate on college campuses.