Boom: State Department Revokes Visas of 6,000 Foreign Students Accused of Crimes, Support for Terrorism By Bob Hoge | 3:28 PM on August 18, 2025The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com. AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah International students are finding out that in the new era, committing crimes and supporting terrorism might not be such a good idea if they wish to study in the United States. Advertisement To wit: the State Department has pulled more than 6,000 student visas for overstays, law violations, and fomenting terroristic views so far in 2025. Protest against the country that welcomes you in all you want, but understand that it might come with a price: The Trump administration has launched multiple initiatives aimed at cracking down on immigration and revoking visas of those attending academic institutions in the U.S. Those who’ve participated in pro-Palestinian protests have faced heightened scrutiny, as one example, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the administration was reviewing the visa status of those students. Rubio’s not messing around: READ MORE: Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth Commence As Rubio Makes His Move on Chinese Student Visas Report: Trump Admin Freezes All Student Visas to Bolster Security Checks on Foreign Students If you come here and get a DUI, commit crimes, or come out in support for terrorism, the rules have now changed with the advent of the Trump administration: The roughly 6,000 visas that were pulled were primarily due to visa overstays or encounters with the law, including assault, DUIs, burglary and support for terrorism, the State Department told Fox News Digital. "Every single student visa revoked under the Trump Administration has happened because the individual has either broken the law or expressed support for terrorism while in the United States," a senior State Department official said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "About 4,000 visas alone have been revoked because these visitors broke the law while visiting our country, including records of assault and DUIs." Advertisement White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took note: As my colleague Teri Christoph reported Saturday, Rubio also put a halt to a visa program that allowed residents of Gaza to enter the United States for "medical-humanitarian" reasons. SEE: State Department Halts Visas for Gaza Residents After Alarming Influx of Families Coming to U.S. Christoph wrote: This comes after videos of large groups of Gazans—often decked out in "Palestinian" flags and keffiyehs associated with the terror group Hamas—arriving at airports across the nation began popping up on social media in the last few weeks. According to this State Department tweet, the program is being paused while officials review the "process and procedures" that have allowed a stream of injured children from Gaza, often accompanied by several family members, into the country. Whether or not these families have been properly vetted is anyone's guess at this point. Advertisement Rubio has brought home an important point during his tenure as SOS: folks aren’t simply “entitled” to a visa. In this new era, if you don’t have the best interests of the United States in mind, you might just find yourself with a one-way ticket back home. Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice. Help us continue to report on the administration’s peace through strength foreign policy and its successes. Join RedState and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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