Fatima Mazhar is a 9th-semester law student at the International Islamic University, Islamabad. She is currently serving as the chairperson of the Law Students Council, Pakistan.

Ever since the Trump administration came into power, there have been nonstop developments regarding deportation. One of its recent targets has been international students legally present in the USA. About a month ago, international students in the USA woke up to an email from the government asking them to self-deport from the country. The decision to revoke student visas by the Trump administration, of course, caused immense stress for students who did not see this coming and led to anxiety for all international students, regardless of their backgrounds or conduct, due to the unclear reasons for their deportation.

Soon after, a rise in social media posts and videos showed plainclothes ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents wearing face masks arresting international students without warning or arrest warrants in broad daylight. Students were taken into custody, denied their right to contact their attorney, and transported out of state to detention centers. Over the past four weeks, the situation has seen many changes, with things seeming to get better one day but worsening the next, as more than 1,000 international students have had their visas revoked under the new Trump administration.

In the beginning, many people thought that deportation was mostly occurring for students involved in campus protests, specifically the pro-Palestine protests. This belief grew stronger after a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who, in a press release, said that the US provides students with visas to study and earn degrees, not to protest on campuses, and that if they do so, the US will revoke their visas.

This statement is ironic, as Marco Rubio was one of the few who opposed Joe Biden’s deportation plan back in 2021, where he stated that it is unfair to retrospectively apply a new policy and punish individuals for something they said or did in the past. However, he contradicts his statement from 2021, as today he is a strong supporter of deporting legally present international students, including cases like that of

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