Northeastern’s decision to offer students whose visas were recently revoked the option to complete classes from Canada or the UK is not protecting students — it is a form of complying with authoritarianism.
In April, the State Department revoked visas for more than 40 Northeastern students and recent graduates. That came after the arrest of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained by plainclothes federal officers. There is substantial evidence that her due process rights were violated and that she was targeted for co-authoring a pro-Palestinian article in The Tufts Daily.
Rather than firmly confronting this encroachment on its international student community by pledging non-cooperation with the Trump administration’s politically motivated crackdown, the university’s primary means for providing answers has been through its “Navigating a New Political Landscape” FAQ page. In an April 6 update, the university said it may allow students whose visas were revoked “to continue their studies remotely or at one of Northeastern’s international campuses in the UK or Canada.”
In giving students the option to continue studies remotely or abroad, the university is normalizing forced political exile instead of providing support and safety. International students are left with no protection, shouldering the full legal, financial and emotional burden of defending their right to remain safely enrolled. This option also ignores the trauma and isolation these students will face after uprooting themselves from their homes and communities.
Adding to the pile of government abuses, the State Department plans to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to scrape international students’ social media posts for political content that “appear[s] to support Hamas or other designated terror groups.” Though the Trump administration restored legal status to international students who had lost it at the end of April, the harm has already been done: Our government has sowed fear and is intimidating us into silence.
The only direct email international students received from Northeastern following the 40 student visa revocations came from the Office of Global Services, urging them to notify the office and seek legal counsel immediately if they receive notice of their visas being revoked. It also instructed international students to carry proof of identity and warned that the U.S. government is now publicly acknowledging that it is scanning social media when making immigration decisions. Northeastern is acting as if carrying proper documentation protects students against politically motivated arrests by an administration that shows no care for civil liberties.
Most damning is the language Northeastern uses to describe this crackdown. Framing these visa revocations as targeting students who “allegedly engaged in criminal behavior” is misleading, as lawyers representing visa-revoked students have said that “case after case … there is no underlying crime.” Northeastern’s negligent description of the events gives cover to a campaign that uses AI to target students for their beliefs and political views. It primes the community to see detained classmates as guilty from the get-go.
This quiet and sparse communication leaves students with more questions than answers and offers little reassurance in the face of life-altering uncertainty. While the university may point to efforts possibly happening behind closed doors, the reality visible to its students is one of abandonment, confusion and fear.
Northeastern’s silence stands in stark contrast to Boston University’s proactive and transparent response. BU has prominently featured a comprehensive FAQ on its homepage, clearly stating that its campus police do not enforce federal immigration laws. The university has established a centralized “Support Pathways” hub offering free legal consultations with external immigration attorneys, assistance with summer housing and mental health services. It also has publicly reinforced these commitments through its main Instagram account.
Northeastern is on the path of quiet compliance, signaling to federal authorities that it will not resist as the rights and safety of international students are stripped away. A university that brands itself as a global leader must act like one by protecting its global student community, not abandoning them to political persecution. Every hyperlink, procedural disclaimer and moment of inaction concedes another inch of our international students’ autonomy and safety. If we act as silent bystanders while 40 students are targeted, we will have nothing but a precedent of inaction when 400 are targeted next.
Northeastern cannot keep waiting for this crisis to escalate before finding its spine. The university should start by offering legal aid, housing, mental health support and public rights education through a centralized hub. These measures lay the groundwork, but Northeastern must quickly build on this with a visible, principled refusal to comply with federal overreach — and the full mobilization of the university’s resources to defend its students.
Students travel from all over the world to attend universities like Northeastern. They seek a sanctuary of inquiry, a crucible of dissent and a steward of justice. We cannot abandon them. We owe it to these students to guarantee a campus where every students’ rights and dignity are defended fiercely.
Let the history books show that when faced with this defining test, Northeastern chose courage over complicity. As President Joseph E. Aoun’s doctoral advisor, Noam Chomsky, once wrote: “The university will be able to make its contribution to a free society only to the extent that it overcomes the temptation to conform unthinkingly to the prevailing ideology and to the existing patterns of power and privilege.”
A university that cannot defend its own students against political persecution does not defend a free society — it abandons its most basic duty to one.
Evan Vassilakis is a third-year health science and psychology combined major. He can be reached at vassilakis.e@northeastern.edu.
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