Amid a federal crackdown on immigration that has already seen highly publicized court battles, at least five students at Binghamton University have had their student visas revoked, a University spokesperson confirmed to Pipe Dream on Friday.

They are among 21 SUNY students who have seen a change-of-visa status as of April 9, a SUNY spokesperson told Pipe Dream. Reports on Thursday from Stony Brook University, another SUNY center, said that 11 students have had their visas terminated.

“SUNY is monitoring this evolving situation and working with campuses to ensure our students know their rights, are referred to the New York State Office for New Americans for any needed legal support, and understand their options to continue their education,” the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.

The Trump administration has revoked more than 965 student visas nationwide as of April 12, according to an oft-cited analysis by the publication Inside Higher Ed. The heightened federal action comes as colleges and universities face intense scrutiny.

The University spokesperson told Pipe Dream that the administration has not requested that BU turn over identifying student information for potential enforcement action. It is unclear why the students at BU and across SUNY had their visas revoked.

The federal government’s targeting of universities has been wide-ranging, from funding cuts and guidance warning against diversity, equity and inclusion programming to the targeting of student activists. Senior administration officials have explained much of the crackdown by accusing college campuses of allowing antisemitism and ideological indoctrination to spread unchecked.

According to a New York Times report, Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder who led negotiations on behalf of pro-Palestinian activists at Columbia University, is believed to be the first detained by the government. Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, justified the detention with a 1952 law that allows officials to deport those believed to pose “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” In the first decision on Khalil’s case, a Louisiana judge ruled on Friday that the government could deport Khalil, upholding the Trump administration’s use of the law.

President Donald Trump, in an executive order signed on Jan. 29, declared that his administration would use “all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.”

In March, alongside 59 other higher education institutions, BU received a letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights warning of “potential enforcement actions” if it failed to meet its obligations to protect Jewish students under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

This follows the January 2024 start of an investigation into the University spurred by a complaint from the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, a conservative media outlet.

Federal agencies have targeted funding for the country’s top universities to force concessions and policy changes. Most notably, Columbia, which faced the revocation of $400 million in grants and contracts, bowed to a list of demands from the administration, including the hiring of 36 security officers with arrest power, a ban on masks during protests and the appointment of a senior administrator to oversee its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department.

Other targeted universities include Brown, which faces a loss of $510 million; Cornell, which could lose over $1 billion; and Northwestern, which could lose nearly $800 million.

Last month, BU said graduate programs and offers would proceed as planned despite the uncertain future of federal funding.

“Late-breaking changes at this crucial time of the recruitment season are unwarranted and would unnecessarily violate the trust of applicants who aspire to join our doctoral programs,” the Graduate School dean, Terrence Deak, wrote in a message to the campus community at the time. “We, therefore, recommend that all graduate programs proceed with their graduate recruitment efforts as planned.”