The Student Visa Lies of Marco Rubio
Israel First as US Domestic Policy
It was frustrating to hear a journalist ask a question and then offer no pushback as Marco Rubio, now repackaged as the chief US diplomat, offered lies not just about Rumeyza Ozturk, but about visas in general and student visas in particular. It’s important to look at the exchange briefly as Israel starts to use its influence to shut people up who they cannot engage with on civil, moral grounds.
Below is an excerpt from the transcript of the exchange in Georgetown, Guyana. I’ll offer commentary after various quotes.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, a Turkish student in Boston was detained and handcuffed on the street by plainclothes agents. A year ago she wrote an opinion piece about the Gaza war. Could you help us understand what the specific action she took led to her visa being revoked? And what was your State Department’s role in that process?
I encourage everyone to head over to Tufts Daily to see the fairly mild op-ed that Ozturk co-authored with three of her fellow students. It’s a standard polite but thoughtful appeal for divestment. BDS is and always has been perceived as an existential threat to Israel, and rightly so, because Israel knows that its fragile economic status is only upheld because it is still (unbelievably) considered part of “polite society.” If they were ever to face what South Africa faced, i.e. the model that inspired BDS, their little Zionist adventure would come to an abrupt end. So, they are fighting every bit of common sense anywhere they find it.
SECRETARY RUBIO: We revoked her visa. It’s an F1 visa, I believe. We revoked it, and here’s why – and I’ll say it again; I’ve said it everywhere. Let me be abundantly clear, okay. If you go apply for a visa right now anywhere in the world – let me just send this message out – if you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and 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.
So Rubio flies off in all kinds of directions here. I doubt he has had to apply for too many visas himself, but having gotten a half dozen visitor visas just in the last six months, I can honestly say that there is not too much deep questioning that goes on in visa applications, particularly not what you think on certain political issues. Here are examples of questions you might have to answer to come to the US as a student:
What is your monthly income?
What is your sponsor's annual income?
How do you plan to fund the entire duration of your education?
How much does your school cost?
How will you meet these expenses?
Who is going to sponsor your education?
What is your sponsor's occupation?
When do you plan to travel to the US?
Who will be traveling with you?
How long will you stay in the US?
Where you will be staying in the US?
What is the purpose of the trip?
What are your plans while in the US?
Of those questions, only two are germane to what Rubio is talking about. A student could rightfully say, I’m going to study, and my plans while in the US are to experience what it’s like to be a student in the US.
Part of the student experience, part of the experience of being an American, is the right to assemble peacefully.
We have NO EVIDENCE that Rumeyza Ozturk “vandalized universities, harrassed students, took over buildings,” or “created a ruckus.” But to the Israelis, words are the same as actions, and the act of daring to encourage your university to divest from a war-criminal-state is the same as physical vandalism or harassment. There’s no room for the irony that no university worth the name could ever pledge to keep students “safe” from challenging ideas or viewpoints.
Rubio’s clever conflation that any anti-Israel visa holder has engaged in violence is smooth enough to offer talking points for MAGA America, creating the impression that safety in America has to be enforced by shutting down debate on Israel.
We also have NO EVIDENCE that Rumeyza Ozturk “lied on her visa application.” In all likelihood, if she had been asked:
Do you accept the immoral occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and US complicity in the rape and kidnapping of children?
Do you want to attend a university that will not even hear you out when you argue peacefully in a student newspaper for BDS?
I have no doubt that Rumeyza would have answered in the negative, because she actually has deep-held beliefs about the murder of children, whereas Rubio is happy to do whatever is politically expedient. Like his boss, President Trump, Rubio will say or do what is popular with his base, no more, no less.
RUBIO: Now, once you’ve lost your visa, you’re no longer legally in the United States, and we have a right, like every country in the world has a right, to remove you from our country. So it’s just that simple.
Sure, and if it’s that simple, why do you need to send six plainclothes officials to take in one unarmed doctoral student? But thugs can’t help being thugs, and they expose in such behavior who is the real threat to the world.
RUBIO: I think it’s crazy – I think it’s stupid for any country in the world to welcome people into their country that are going to go to their universities as visitors – they’re visitors – and say I’m going to your universities to start a riot, I’m going to your universities to take over a library and harass people. I don’t care what movement you’re involved in. Why would any country in the world allow people to come and disrupt? We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campuses. And if we’ve given you a visa and then you decide to do that, we’re going to take it away.
Rubio is appealing to the absurd. Again, we have no evidence that Ozturk has ever “started a riot” and not a single journalist has the basic courage or integrity to ask the Secretary, “Do you have evidence that Ozturk has ever started a riot or has ever harassed anyone?”
RUBIO: I encourage every country to do that, by the way, because I think it’s crazy to invite students into your country that are coming onto your campus and destabilizing it. We’re just not going to have it. So we’ll revoke your visa; and once your visa is revoked, you’re illegally in the country and you have to leave. Every country in the world has a right to decide who comes in as a visitor and who doesn’t.
I completely agree that every country has a right to decide who comes in and who doesn’t. As I said, I’ve applied for many visitor visas and have almost always gotten them. In fact the most recent time I didn’t get a visa was in 2022 from Algeria. My application wasn’t rejected, strictly speaking, but they simply refused to process it, despite my visiting the consulate numerous times to follow up. When I enquired through Algerian friends later on I found out there was a shadow ban at the time on processing American tourist visas. I was frustrated, but what could I say? Their country, their rules. I respect that.
But Rumeyza Ozturk didn’t break any laws. Unless it’s now illegal to criticize Israel in the press. If so, it would be helpful for the Department of State to publish all the “no-go” topics for students in American universities so as to prevent doctoral students getting picked up on street corners by thugs in the future. Let us show the world how much we champion free speech by delineating precisely that speech which you are not free to speak.
RUBIO: If you invite me into your home because you say, “I want to come to your house for dinner,” and I go to your house and I start putting mud on your couch and spray-painting your kitchen, I bet you you’re going to kick me out. Well, we’re going to do the same thing if you come into the United States as a visitor and create a ruckus for us. We don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country, but you’re not going to do it in our country.
Sigh.
The State Department in the person of the Secretary is alleging that other people come to America to make “a ruckus” when the reality is that USAID and other thuggish agencies have been making ruckuses in other countries for two generations now?
QUESTION: Could you confirm – there’s new reporting that 300 visas – State Department has revoked 300 visas?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Maybe more. It might be more than 300 at this point. We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.
Sure. I hope – I mean, at some point I hope we run out because we’ve gotten rid of all of them. But we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.
Rubio then swerves off into Venezuelan gangs, because when I think of doctoral students who live in Boston, I think of gang members.
Also, when Rubio says, “every time I find one of these lunatics” he means “every time I am given a name by my masters,” like Betar US (who have admitted as such).
Again, the silly conflation by Rubio (academic speech = terrorism) is obvious for those who have eyes and ears, but good enough for MAGA America, who is happy to believe whatever they’re told by a chaotic administration led by someone without deep beliefs in anything but himself and his own rectitude.
#EndTheOccupation
Oh little Marco you puta, you are going to take some FALL for your evil deeds.