Trump cancels hundreds of student visas, forcing rapid departures

Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Tue, April 8, 2025 

DENVER ‒ The Trump administration has revoked hundreds of international student visas across the country, setting off a desperate scramble for them to leave the United States within days.

Universities have reported some students being forced to leave immediately, in many cases after discovering their visas were canceled in the federal Student Exchange and Visitor Information System or via an unexpected text or email. Multiple universities contacted by the USA TODAY Network regarding the visa cancellations declined to discuss specifics, citing student confidentiality.

Immigration experts said they've never seen the federal government make such sweeping changes to the ordinarily low-profile process of hosting international students. The National Immigration Project is challenging the visa cancellations, which have affected students in California, Colorado, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts and Florida, among others.

The cancellations reflect a small percentage of the estimated 1.5 million international students studying in the United States, but have sent shockwaves through the collegiate community. Some of the cancellations appear to be connected to things as minor as roommate disputes or as off-campus traffic tickets, university officials said, while others appear to be connected to pro-Palestinian protest participation.

"I've been doing this for 25 years and I've never seen 300 students lose their visas," said Len Saunders, a Washington state immigration attorney based near the Canadian border. "To hear that something like 300 visas were canceled out of the blue … it's all political. To read that there's hundreds of people having their visas canceled, you know exactly what it is."

President Donald Trump won back the White House after campaigning on tough new immigration controls, and some conservatives have accused other countries, particularly China, of sending students to study in the United States to steal intellectual property. International students are typically ineligible for financial aid and instead usually pay full tuition, subsidizing other students.

According to the federal government, California is home to the largest number of international students, and the most popular majors among international students are computer science, language, and business administration and management. People from India and China represent the largest proportion of international students, accounting for about half of the overall enrollment, according to federal officials.

There is no central accounting of how many students have had their visas revoked or where they came from. Many of the foreign students involved in campus protests were from the Middle East.

Saunders said he's seen a handful of students annually lose their visas over things like a drunken-driving arrest, but in many cases, students were allowed to finish out their studies.

This round of visa cancellations has prompted some students to leave immediately, including those who are close to graduating. At the University of Michigan, officials said they were trying to figure out how to help an international student finish his architectural master's degree work despite fleeing home.

The visa cancellations appear to be different than the targeted detentions of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil and Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, largely because the students are not being detained but are instead being told to self-deport within seven days. The cancellations have sparked scattered protests, including at the University of Arizona.

People rally in support of a Tufts University student in Somerville, Mass. near Boston on March 26, 2025. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 30-year-old Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk, who was in the country on a valid F-1 visa, near her home on Tuesday as she was on her way to meet friends to break her Ramadan fast, said her attorney, Mahsa Khanbabai.More

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month that he's revoked at least 300 visas of students he described as "lunatics," citing pro-Palestinian support or activism, activities that are normally considered protected First Amendment rights.

"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 visas," Rubio said at a press conference.

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Colorado State University officials said six students there lost their visas, and university officials escorted some of them to the airport to fly home. It's unclear whether the students have the right to appeal their visa revocations.

"To date, no specific justification for the visa revocations has been provided to the impacted individuals or CSU," Kathleen Fairfax, the university's vice provost for international affairs, said in a statement. "We are working proactively with the students to help them connect with appropriate legal resources and understand their options. CSU is providing this support based on students' personal decisions."

At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Chancellor Javier Reyes said five international students lost their visas and urged other students to check their own status. He said affected students are being offered financial assistance through the university's "Angel Fund," which was created during the first Trump presidency to help students affected by changes in immigration laws.

Reyes, who first came to the United States from Mexico on a student visa himself, called the American higher education system "the envy of the world" and promised international students "unwavering support as we confront this new reality."

New York University professor Robert Cohen, who studies protest movements, said targeting students because they attended rallies or wrote pro-Palestinan letters is a thinly veiled attempt by Trump to clamp down on dissent.

"It speaks to the issue that Donald Trump and these right-wing people don't actually believe in free speech," Cohen said.

The American Council on Education and 15 other higher ed groups have requested a briefing from federal officials. The groups noted that Trump has the responsibility and right to safeguard national security but asked for an explanation of the decision-making process.

"Recent actions have contributed to uncertainty and impedes the ability of our institutions to best advise international students and scholars," the groups wrote in an April 4 letter to Rubio and other officials. "It is important institutions are in a position to reassure international students so they can continue to make exceptional contributions to their campuses, communities, and the nation."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump cancels hundreds of student visas

Studies shows new class of antibiotic is effective in tackling MRSA

University of Plymouth

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Professor Mathew Upton, Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Plymouth and Chief Scientific Officer at Amprologix

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Credit: University of Plymouth

The development of new antibiotics to treat superbugs and other bacterial infections is a global priority, with the rate of infections that cannot be treated with current antibiotics rising and presenting one of the biggest threats to human health.

In line with that, new research has shown a daily dose of epidermicin NI01 – an antibiotic compound developed by University of Plymouth spinout company Amprologix – is as effective at removing Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as the current standard of care.

The results were achieved through a robust skin MRSA infection model, and those behind the research say it justifies further pre-clinical development. In particular, they plan to advance tests exploring whether the compound can be incorporated within gel-type therapies that can be applied to the skin.

Such treatments could be used to treat skin infections caused by MRSA and other bacteria on everything from accidental cuts to surgical wounds, preventing the need for prolonged courses of current antibiotics.

Professor Mathew Upton, Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of Plymouth and Chief Scientific Officer at Amprologix, will present the latest findings at ESCMID Global 2025, the Congress of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.

Running from April 11-15, and taking place in Vienna, it will be attended by an audience of leading experts in infectious diseases and clinical microbiology.

Professor Upton said: “At the moment, there are antibiotics that can be used to treat skin infections caused by MRSA and other Staphylococcus strains, but these can come with a number of unpleasant side effects. There is also increased resistance to these treatments in many bacteria, meaning that therapies can fail. Our intention would be to continue to use these standard treatments for the more serious MRSA/Staphylococcus infections, like those in the bloodstream, but to develop other ways of treating more superficial infections, for example on the skin. The results we have achieved so far in our tests are very encouraging. They are a clear sign that epidermicin NI01 has the potential to be an effective treatment in this setting, and we now plan to scale up our work and get to a position where we can commence human clinical trials.”

Professor Upton is a world-leading expert in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and leads the Antibiotic Resistant Pathogens Research Group at the University of Plymouth.

Amprologix was launched in 2018 to commercialise his research and, through a partnership with the University’s commercialisation partner Frontier IP, has pioneered a drug discovery programme focused on identifying the next generation of antibiotics.

Based in the University’s Derriford Research Facility, located on Plymouth Science Park, its work combines laboratory tests with the use of cutting edge machine learning technologies designed to accelerate research and improve antibiotic properties.

The work is funded in part through a £1million award from Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, as part of its Biomedical Catalyst programme.

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Method of Research

Experimental study

 

How to protect bumblebee colonies safe from killer moths? Keep honeybee hives away from them

Bumblebee colonies closer to honeybee hives are more likely to attract voracious wax moths

Frontiers

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Workers of the buff-tailed bumblebee

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Credit: Indrikis Krams

Since the pandemic, we are very aware of the power of social distancing to protect against infectious disease. But can social distancing be effective if the infectious agent isn’t a virus or bacterium, but an insect powered by a brain and wings, and with the instinct to seek out new hosts?

Now, a study published to Frontiers in Bee Science has shown that physical distance does play a leading role in protecting bumblebees against a flying insect parasite, the bumblebee wax moth Aphomia sociella. The source of the potentially lethal infection was another species, namely nearby hives of domestic honeybees.

“Here we show that infestation with bumblebee wax moths is much greater in bumblebee colonies that are closer to honeybee apiaries,” said Dr Indrikis Krams, a professor at Daugavpils University and the University of Riga in Latvia, and the corresponding author of the new study.

“Because the presence of the moths lowers the bumblebees’ immune response and output of new workers and queens, the health and productivity of bumblebee colonies is lower near apiaries. This puts further stress on populations of these important pollinators, which are already declining around the world due to habitat loss, pesticides, and global warming.”

Like moths to a hive

Bumblebee wax moths, native in Eurasia and North Africa, seek out nests of bumblebees, honeybees, or wasps to lay their eggs. Young larvae feast on wax cells, pollen and nectar stores, and the corpses and droppings of the hosts, while older larvae attack living host larvae for food. Heavy infestations may wipe out their hosts or drive them abandon the nest. Infestations are easy to spot, as the moth larvae spin dense silk layers to protect themselves.

Krams and colleagues set out to study the impact of nearby honeybee colonies on buff-tailed bumblebees, Bombus terrestris. In 2019 and 2024, they placed a total of 25 boxed bumblebee colonies at a distance between zero and 600 meters from one of six small apiaries near Krāslava, Latvia. They regularly checked each bumblebee colony for the presence of wax moths, and counted open and closed brood cells as well as recently eclosed bees.

The experiment ran from spring until early July, when young bumblebee queens and males disperse to mate.

To gauge the immune response of individual bumblebees, the researchers used a well-established test, the encapsulation response assay. This involved piercing the abdominal exoskeleton of 260 bumblebee workers and introducing a 3mm-long sterile nylon filament through the puncture, which was left inside for five hours and then removed. Arthropods respond to the presence of parasites in their ‘blood’ by recruiting immune cells called hemocytes, which produce the pigment melanin to immobilize and kill the foreign bodies. The shade of the melanin capsule around the retrieved filament was taken as a proxy for the strength of immunity, which tends to increase with the health of the colony.

The results showed that bumblebee colonies closer to an apiary were more likely to become infested with wax moths: whenever this distance increased by one further meter, the probability of infestation decreased by 0.6%. Colonies closer to apiaries were also more productive: for every additional meter apart, the number of bumblebee queen and worker cells increased by 0.14 and 0.44 in healthy colonies, respectively, and by 0.08 and 0.348 cells in infested colonies. Finally, the encapsulation response was 3.5% stronger for every extra meter from the apiary.

Keeping wax moths at a respectful distance

The researchers concluded that bumblebee colonies do worse in terms of immunity and productivity as they are closer to honeybee colonies. This is likely due to a two-punch effect: shorter distances make it more likely that wax moths will disperse to find and attack bumblebee colonies, while the competition over flowers intensifies between the two bee species.

“The compromised immune system of bumblebees in colonies infested with wax moths may in turn make them more susceptible to other parasites or pathogens. This is a concern, because their populations are already declining,” said Krams.

“Conservationists and beekeepers should avoid placing apiaries in areas where pollinator biodiversity is high, as well as in areas where bumblebee populations are in decline.  Plans for introducing honeybee apiaries should be devised to maximize pollination while minimizing the negative effects on bumblebee populations.”

Foraging workers of the buff-tailed bumblebee

Nest of the buff-tailed bumblebee

Nest of the buff-tailed bumblebee

Credit

Indrikis Krams

Nest of the buff-tailed bumblebee

Credit

Dzeina Saulite

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Journal

Frontiers in Bee Science

DOI

10.3389/frbee.2025.1550560 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Infestation levels of Aphomia sociella in bumblebees increase with proximity to apiaries and result in lower reproductive output and weaker immune response

Article Publication Date

10-Apr-2025

Unsafe driving during school drop offs at ‘unacceptable’ levels

Double parking, not obeying traffic controls and other unsafe behavior witnessed at 98% of schools studied

Risky driving behaviors at school drop-off across Canadian municipalities

Taylor & Francis Group

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Risky driving by parents and other motorists who do the school run is putting children in danger, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Traffic Injury Prevention.

Double parking, not obeying traffic controls and other unsafe behavior occurs at the majority (98%) of elementary schools during morning drop-off times. 

The authors analyzed data from more than 500 schools in Canada and say hazardous driving is an “urgent and serious” issue. The most observed misdemeanour was to drop a student on the opposite side of the street which meant the child had to cross in the middle of the block with no traffic controls.

The researchers warn that unsafe driving increases (by 45%, as demonstrated in previous research) the chance of a car crash involving child pedestrians and other vulnerable road users such as cyclists. In addition, parents are even more likely to drive their children to lessons instead of them walking or using other active forms of transportation.

‘Kiss-and-rides’ where designated spaces are provided for private vehicle drop offs are among reforms suggested by the authors. They also say accessible parking should be available for families with a disabled child.

Although the researchers didn’t monitor speeding, the schools with the fewest types of risky driving behaviors had more adjacent roads with speed limits of either 30km/h or 40km/h (versus 50+ km/h).

They also had more direct access to school entrances, and more parking restrictions on both sides of the roadway than those with the most recorded types of risky driving behaviors.

“The results indicate the unacceptable level and types of risky driving behaviors in school zones,” says Tona Pitt, a Research Associate at the University of Calgary, in Alberta.

“Risky behaviors can have a doubly negative effect. They increase collisions involving vulnerable road users and potentially dissuade active school transportation.”

Tona adds: “We have often heard from parents, residents, teachers, and other stakeholders, that school drop-off is a chaotic time.

“This study helps to quantify that a bit and we do observe some sort of dangerous driving behaviour occurring a nearly every school on randomly selected days.

“Drop-off locations, physical changes to the roadways, and crossing guards might help to reduce these behaviours in the meantime, but at the end of the day parents feel the need to drive their children to school and this is often due to systematic issues related to urban planning and/or limited access to schools.

“The findings suggest improvements to the built environment around schools that may help to address this serious and urgent situation.”

Use of private vehicles to take children to school has increased substantially. For instance, in the US, from 1969 to 2009, by 47.5%. Conversely, there has been a drop in active forms of school transportation such as walking and biking which improves child health and development. Previous CHASE data indicates 45.8% of children in Canadian schools use some form of automotive transport to get to school.

As such, school drop-off times can result in high volumes of traffic. This situation means drivers may park illegally and resort to other unsafe practices which can put children at risk.

The Child Active Transportation Safety and the Environment (CHASE) study was based on morning drop-off time data collected between spring 2018 and 2019. A total of 552 elementary schools in seven cities were included.

Audits were done of the physical environment at roads adjacent to the schools. Speed limit signs, designated parking areas, and presence of a crossing guard were among features documented for CHASE.

In addition, the authors classified how much the built environment around each school promoted physical activity and health using the Active Living Environment (ALE) measure.

Research assistants positioned themselves from 20 minutes to five minutes after school start at either side of the main entrance. Their checklist was based on nine risky driving behaviors as follows:

• U-turns
• backing up dangerously
• double parking
• not obeying traffic controls
• parking blocking crossing controls
• parking in such a way as to block sightlines of road users
• texting while driving
• talking on the phone while driving
• dropping a child off on the opposite side of the street with the child subsequently crossing in the middle of a city block where there are no traffic controls.

Schools with the highest and lowest occurrences of a type of unsafe behavior were identified. Any association between this behavior and the physical environment near schools was documented.

Results from CHASE showed that at least one behavior affecting road safety took place at all the elementary schools. The risky behavior that occurred the least was using a phone/texting (20%) – although, this varied by city with cellphone use observed at 38% of Calgary schools.

Schools with the fewest types of risky behaviors had more favourable ALE scores, fewer roads directly adjacent, and more kerb extensions – features that narrow lane width to reduce vehicle speeds. They also had more signage to restrict parking and more access to entrances to the school.

Overall, more than half (55%) of schools had child or adult crossing guards (or both). Schools with the fewest types of risky driving behaviors were less likely to use children, a finding which the authors say represents a cause for ‘serious concern’. They suggest the presence of an adult may be more effective in curtailing risky driving behavior than a child guard on their own.

Some differences between cities were also observed. U-turns in front of a school were most common in Toronto (82%) whereas parking that blocked an entrance view came top in Peel Region (75%).

A limitation of the study was that the research assistants did not count the actual number of risky behaviors, only whether they observed at least one at a school.

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Journal

Traffic Injury Prevention

DOI

10.1080/15389588.2025.2478153 

Article Title

Risky driving behaviors at school drop-off across Canadian municipalities: Findings from the Child Active Transportation Safety and the Environment (CHASE) study

Article Publication Date

10-Apr-2025

 

Reality check on our approach to saving Nemo’s home

Restoration isn’t a silver bullet for dying coral reefs

Flinders University

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One-third of coral-reef restoration projects fail. Even successful restorations cannot offset the loss from climate change.

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Credit: Flinders University.

As coral bleaching and deaths become more widespread globally, experts are re-evaluating the benefits of restoration missions to reverse damage and protect some of the world's most species-rich ecosystems.

When sea temperatures climb above average for sustained periods, corals can become bleached, meaning that they expel their symbiotic algae. If bleaching is severe, it can eventually kill the coral tissue.

Warming seas and marine heatwaves driven by climate change are the primary culprits, while overfishing and pollution are also making things worse. This has led to bleaching in iconic locations such as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, home to the beloved clownfish – made famous by Nemo of Pixar movies.

The most common coral restoration method is known as coral gardening, where coral fragments grown in nurseries are transplanted to the reef.

Restoration can take other forms, including removing species that eat corals (such as parrot fish), transferring coral spawn, or even manipulating the local microbiome to enhance coral survival. 

A new study by Dr Giovanni Strona at the European Union Joint Research Centre, Clelia Mulà of the University of Western Australia, and Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology Corey Bradshaw from Flinders University in Australia has examined the reasons behind the failure of these restoration efforts to deliver enhanced protections for coral reefs.

This analysis was done in collaboration with researchers from the University of Milan-Bicocca, the Marine Research and Higher Education Center (Maldives) and the University of Helsinki.

Published in open-access journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, their results show major barriers to effective interventions include the small scale of restoration programs, high costs per hectare, and the tendency to restore already compromised reefs that are highly vulnerable to future heat stresses.

“Most restoration projects only operate over several hundred or a few thousand square metres. Compared to the 14% loss and degradation of coral reefs between 2009 and 2018, equating to nearly 12,000 square kilometres, we come nowhere close to the scale of restoration that is needed to offset the losses from climate change,” says Professor Bradshaw.

“This combination of adverse factors, coupled with the fact conservation efforts can target sites that don’t have the highest change of success, means over a third of projects fail.

“This reality check should stimulate constructive debate about when and where restoration is most feasible and important. But the truth is that without stemming the pace and magnitude of climate change, we have little power to save coral reefs from massive losses over the coming century and beyond.”

The researchers say restoration failures can be for many reasons, including poor planning, unproven technologies, insufficient monitoring and subsequent heatwaves.

“Although coral restoration has the potential to be a valuable tool in certain circumstances, our research makes it clear it is not yet and might never be feasible to scale up sufficiently to have meaningful, long-term, and positive effects on coral reef ecosystems,” says Professor Bradshaw.

The research shows that coral reefs benefit more than 1 billion people globally by providing tourism dollars, food security and protection from storms and coastal erosion.

“Some estimate that over the past 40 years, the coverage of coral reefs has declined by at least 50%. As climate change continues, bleaching events and coral deaths will only become more common, with projected losses of total coral cover of more than 90% by the end of the century,” says Dr Giovanni Strona.

“One of the problems here is that there are no agreed formats for collecting or reporting data from restoration projects. This makes it difficult or impossible to identify the conditions leading to success and reduces the pace of improvement. Indeed, we found that no measures of human impacts, pre- and post-restoration bleaching risk, coral diversity, remoteness, or type of restoration could explain why a project was successful or not.”

Lead author Clelia Mulà adds: “Reinforcing complementary strategies could therefore bolster ecosystem resilience, extending the reach and success of coral restoration projects.”

Coral Reef Restoration Outcome [VIDEO] | 

Video explains new research that shows one-third of coral reef restoration projects are failing. Even succesful restorations cannot offset the loss from climate change.

Journal

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-025-02667-x 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Restoration cannot be scaled up globally to save reefs from loss and degradation

Article Publication Date

8-Apr-2025