Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled “Catch and Revoke” effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders’ social media accounts — marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government’s policing of foreign nationals’ conduct and speech.
- The reviews of social media accounts are particularly looking for evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, officials say.
Officials plan to examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration.
- They say they’re also checking news reports of anti-Israel demonstrations and Jewish students’ lawsuits that highlight foreign nationals allegedly engaged in antisemitic activity without consequence.
- The State Department is working with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security in what one senior State official called a “whole of government and whole of authority approach.”
Zoom in: To launch “Catch and Revoke,” federal officials examined 100,000 people in the Student Exchange Visitor System since October 2023 to see if any visas had been revoked because the student been arrested or suspended from school.
- Usually, a consular official whose office issues the visa for a foreigner makes the revocation decision once they’ve been alerted about an arrest or a suspension.
- “We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration,” the official said, “… which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement.”
Zoom out: The Immigration Nationality Act of 1952 gives the secretary of state the authority to revoke visas from foreigners deemed to be a threat —a point Rubio made as a senator eight days after Oct. 7.