The State Department is harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to go after visa recipients in the United States who appear to express sympathy for Hamas and other terrorist groups.
Under a “catch and revoke” program that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched but not yet announced, the Trump administration is scanning social media posts to identify non-U.S. citizens residing in the country who are believed to support Hamas, according to Axios. The State Department would not comment on the program or its use of AI.
The rollout comes as the Trump administration moves to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder and recent graduate of Columbia University who helped lead protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The AI program has raised First Amendment concerns, with free speech and Arab American groups viewing the Gaza focus as a slippery slope that could conflate pro-Palestinian sentiment with support for Hamas itself. However, the State Department argues that the U.S. would never have approved the visas in the first place had the views of certain activists been known.
“When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is … you are here as a visitor. We can deny you that visa,” Rubio said during a press conference Wednesday.
“If you tell us when you apply for your visa, ‘And by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, antisemitic activities, I intend to shut down your universities.’ If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa. I hope we would,” Rubio continued.
.@SecRubio on pro-Hamas agitators with student visas: When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is… we can deny you that visa… and if you end up having a green card, and you’re here engaging in those activities, we’re going to kick you out. pic.twitter.com/Yh6SlrKhq7
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 12, 2025
The name “catch and revoke” is similar to the Republican-used term “catch and release,” which refers to the arrest and release of illegal immigrants into the U.S.
State combs social media posts
The State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs reviews visa applications to ensure applicants are not a danger to the country and that they meet legal requirements.
The State Department told the Washington Examiner that its new actions align with its duty to protect the nation and its citizens.
“Those who support foreign terrorist organizations threaten our national security. The United States has zero tolerance for aliens who support terrorists,” a State Department spokesperson wrote in an email. “Violators of U.S. law, including international students, may face visa denial or visa revocation.”
Under the program, State Department employees are using AI to search for social media posts in which visa recipients sympathize with the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas invasion that resulted in the deaths of 1,139 people and the captivity of some 250 hostages.
The invasion prompted a bloody conflict in Gaza that spawned nationwide campus protests last year over a military offensive by Israel that killed thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Axios reported that officials had reviewed 100,000 visas issued through the Student Exchange Visitor System since October 2023 but found no student visas had been revoked since the Hamas attack.
The State Department is now looking at internal databases to determine if any visa recipients were arrested but not removed from the country, given the wide-scale pro-Palestinian protests.
Student visa recipients are automatically stripped of their visa if they are suspended or expelled from a college or university while studying in the U.S.
AI program sparks free speech debate
The Trump administration’s decision to use AI for the first time with visa applications has spurred a clash over the First Amendment.
“Another reminder that Palestine is the canary in the coal mine of authoritarianism and repression,” wrote Yousef Munayyer, a Middle East analyst who leads the Arab Center’s Palestine/Israel program in Washington, in a post to X. “The bombs they drop in Palestine won’t stay there. The laws that target Palestine won’t stop there. The tech tools they abuse won’t be limited to there.”
Abed Ayoub, national executive director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said using AI this way was “concerning.”
“The use of AI is much more concerning. This is an attack on 1A rights. Wrapping this up as national security doesn’t change anything. That language is so broad that they will use just about anything to justify a visa revocation,” said Ayoub. “Are Americans ready to give up their First Amendment rights simply to stop criticism of a foreign nation?”
Rubio addressed the free speech argument in his Wednesday press briefing, telling reporters that the State Department has broad discretion to revoke visas.
“This is not about free speech. This is about people that don’t have a right to be in the United States to begin with,” Rubio said. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way. So when you apply for a student visa or any visa to enter the United States, we have a right to deny you for virtually any reason.”
First visa revocation
Last weekend, the State Department revoked Khalil’s visa, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, is fighting in court to move his detention from Louisiana to New York, where he was first taken into custody.
The Department of Homeland Security cited “President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism” and argued Khalil’s “activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.”
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump warned that “all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests” were being “put on notice.”
“Come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said, according to a White House fact sheet. “I will also quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
The arrest has sparked a ballooning legal battle. Khalil and seven students on Thursday asked a federal court to block Columbia University from sharing student disciplinary records with a House committee that requested them in February.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, Rubio has the authority to rescind visas of noncitizens he determines to be a threat to U.S. interests, a condition he echoed in a Fox News appearance days after the Oct. 7 attack.
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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a Philadelphia-based defender of fundamental rights on college campuses, said the government’s answers to why Khalil was targeted are insufficient.
“The federal government must not use immigration enforcement to punish and filter out ideas disfavored by the administration,” FIRE said in a statement. “It must also afford due process to anyone facing arrest and detention, and must be clear and transparent about the basis for its actions, to avoid chilling protected speech.”
