Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin calls for State Department to remove visas for students backing terror groups
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin is calling on the United States Department of State to remove foreign student visa holders who have shown support to terror groups.
Griffin sent a letter on behalf of a coalition of 20 state attorneys general to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas calling for the change a month after the Hamas attack on Israel, leaving at least 1,400 Israelis dead.
“Since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, where 1,400 men, women, children and babies were killed and 240 were taken captive, college campuses have become a glowing hotbed of antisemitic activity and threats of violence against Jewish students and people at a time when Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group linked to both Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad—two entities designated by the U.S. Department of State as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’—issued a ‘call to action’ asking its college chapters to hold demonstrations on campuses across the country,” Griffin said in a statement released after sending the letter.
Griffin is asking for the State Department to vet foreign student visa holders. Griffin said that he and the other attorneys general are concerned that college students in the United States on student visas may be supporting terrorist activity through membership in SJP, making them ineligible to hold visas.
“As state attorneys general, we are concerned that foreign students admitted to colleges in the United States on student visas may be supporting terrorist activity through membership in SJP and are ineligible to hold a student visa under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” Griffin said.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, a foreigner who supports terrorist acts is ineligible to receive a visa and ineligible to be admitted in the United States. Providing support to foreign terrorist organizations is a felony under Arkansas law.
Griffin was joined in his letter by the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia. Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
from KARK https://ift.tt/ajCBghZ
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