US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday he has canceled the visas of more than 300 "lunatics" in a growing crackdown against anti-Israel activism on American university campuses.
Asked to confirm reports of 300 visas stripped, Rubio said: "Maybe more than 300 at this point. We do it every day."
"Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," he told reporters on a visit to Guyana.
"At some point I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of them," Rubio said.
Since President Donald Trump returned to office on January 20, Rubio has moved aggressively against students at the forefront of on-campus anti-Israel protests in response to the Gaza war.
The most high-profile case is Mahmoud Khalil, who led protests at Columbia University in New York. He was arrested this month and taken to Louisiana ahead of deportation proceedings, despite being a US permanent resident.
Rubio was asked about a new case at Tufts University in Massachusetts where immigration agents arrested a Turkish doctoral student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who had written an opinion piece in a campus newspaper demanding that the university recognize a "genocide" against the Palestinians.
Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, accused the Trump administration of moving to "abduct students with legal status".
"This is a horrifying violation of Rumeysa's constitutional rights to due process and free speech. She must be immediately released," Pressley said in a statement.
The Trump administration has responded that the US constitutional protection of free speech does not apply to non-US citizens and has accused activist students of creating a dangerous atmosphere for Jewish students.
Without commenting directly on the Tufts case, Rubio said: "If you tell us that the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we're not going to give you a visa."
"If you lie to us and get a visa and then enter the United States, and with that visa, participate in that sort of activity, we're going to take away your visa," he said.
Rubio says Venezuela gangsters 'worse than al-Qaeda'
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday described some Tren de Aragua gang members as being worse than Al Qaeda, while promising to double down on controversial forced deportations.
With Donald Trump's administration facing fierce criticism for deporting planes full of migrants from the United States without normal due process, Rubio defended the policy.
"These are some really bad people" Rubio said during a trip to Guyana, where he faced more questions about whether those deported to El Salvador, Venezuela and elsewhere were actually gang members.
"Tren de Aragua is one of the most dangerous gangs the world has ever seen," he said, referring to a group that has grown from Venezuelan prisons to become a thousands-strong transnational crime syndicate.
"When they were held temporarily in Guantanamo" Rubio said, "the marines at Guantanamo said that 'these are some of the roughest people we have ever interacted with, they were worse than the Al Qaeda guys that were in their jails'."
"Think about that. We are getting rid of them and want to get rid of more of them" Rubio added.
Al Qaeda was responsible for the deaths of some 2,977 people in the United States on September 11, 2001 alone.
The group and its affiliates have also launched decades-long bombing campaigns around the world — often targeting civilians -— and fought bloody insurgencies from Somalia to Afghanistan.
The Tren de Aragua operates across Latin America and in the United States, where it was recently declared a terrorist organisation by Trump.
Some lower US courts have ruled that Trump's summary deportation of Venezuelan migrants -- under an obscure 1798 wartime law -- must be paused.
The relatives of several men transported from the United States to a notorious El Salvador jail have said their loved ones were not involved in the gang, and were targeted because they have tattoos.
Rubio insisted Thursday that the group had been well vetted by the Department of Homeland Security, rather than his department, and that he had confidence in their work.
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