DHS

A 24-year-old Honduran man who was fleeing federal immigration agents in Virginia died on a highway after being struck by a vehicle.

The death of Josué Castro Rivera follows recent incidents in which three other immigrants in Chicago and California were killed during immigration enforcement operations under the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Castro Rivera was headed to a gardening job Thursday when his vehicle was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, brother Henry Castro said.

Agents tried to detain Castro Rivera and the three other passengers, and he fled on foot, tried to cross Interstate 264 in Norfolk and was fatally struck, according to state and federal authorities.

Castro Rivera came to the United States four years ago and was working to send money to family in Honduras, according to his brother.

“He had a very good heart,” Castro said Sunday.

The Department of Homeland Security said Castro Rivera’s vehicle was stopped by ICE as part of a “targeted, intelligence-based” operation and passengers were detained for allegedly living in the country without legal permission.

DHS said in a statement that Castro Rivera “resisted heavily and fled” and died after a passing vehicle struck him. DHS officials did not respond Sunday to requests for further comment.

Virginia State Police said officers responded to a report of a vehicle-pedestrian crash around 11 a.m. Thursday on eastbound I-264 at the Military Highway interchange. Police said Castro Rivera was hit by a 2002 Ford pickup and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.

Federal authorities and state police gave his first name as Jose, but family members said it was Josué. DHS and state police did not explain the discrepancy.

Castro called his brother’s death an injustice and said he is raising money to transport the body back to Honduras for the funeral.

“He didn’t deserve everything that happened to him,” Castro said.

DHS blamed Castro Rivera’s death on “a direct result of every politician, activist and reporter who continue to spread propaganda and misinformation about ICE’s mission and ways to avoid detention.”

Similar deaths amid immigration operations elsewhere have triggered protests, lawsuits and calls for investigation amid claims that the Trump administration’s initial accounts are misleading.

Last month in suburban Chicago, federal immigration agents fatally shot a Mexican man during a traffic stop. DHS initially said a federal officer was “seriously injured,” but police body camera video showed the federal officer walking around and describing his own injuries as “ nothing major.”

In July, a farmworker who fell from a greenhouse roof during a chaotic ICE raid at a California cannabis facility died of his injuries. And in August, a man ran away from federal agents onto a freeway in the same state and was fatally struck by a vehicle.

Tareen and Walling write for the Associated Press.

Oct. 20 (UPI) — Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol officials are expected to appear in court on Monday to after a judge last week demanded the agency answer questions about its operations in Chicago.

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis for the Northern District of Illinois on Friday ordered ICE and Border Patrol officers to wear body cameras. They were expected in court to explain their tactics, including the use of tear gas, as officers and residents have clashed across the city.

The case was brought as Operation Midway Blitz has led to the arrest of more than 1,000 people in Illinois over the past month after the Trump administration sent federal forces there.

Ellis, who was nominated for the bench by former President Barack Obama, on Thursday ordered federal agents to stop dispersing crowds from places they are legally permitted to be, stop using tear gas on people who are not a threat and start wearing the cameras.

On Friday, she reiterated these orders to both agencies and noted that “that wasn’t a suggestion … it’s not up for debate.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit alleged that the tactics used by both agencies, which have included using pepper balls and pepper spray against people with no warning, are violating their constitutional rights — and the agencies continue to use them, despite Ellis ordering them to stop in early October.

Both agencies have not followed the judicial orders, and Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin went so far as to suggest they do not exist.

“There is currently no order requiring body cameras, and any suggestion to the contrary is false reporting,” she said, adding that “were a court to enter such an order in the future, it would be an act of extreme judicial activism.”

Several airports in California have refused to play a video featuring U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for delays due to the federal government shutdown.

The video, playing for travelers waiting in Transportation Security Administration security lines at airports across the country, comes as the government entered a third week of a shutdown after Congress failed to reach an agreement on funding legislation.

“It is TSA’s top priority to make sure you have the most pleasant and efficient airport experience as possible while we keep you safe,” Noem says in the video. “However, Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government and because of this many of our operations are impacted, and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”

Officials at multiple airports in California say they are not playing the video at their locations. They include: John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Hollywood Burbank Airport, San Diego International Airport, San José Mineta International Airport, Sacramento International Airport, Oakland San Francisco Bay Airport and San Francisco International Airport.

Officials from Los Angeles International Airport did respond to questions on whether the video was being played there.

Some airport officials have refused to play the video, calling it inappropriate. On Tuesday, the ranking member of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation called for Noem to be investigated for possibly breaking the Hatch Act by asking airports to play the video.

“Recent reports indicate DHS is using taxpayer dollars and federal assets to produce and air a video message featuring Secretary Noem, in her official capacity, making political attacks against Democratic Members of Congress,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) wrote in a letter addressed to the Office of Special Counsel and reviewed by The Times. “This message is not just false; it appears to violate the prohibitions contained in the Hatch Act.”

The act, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, is to “ensure that federal programs are administered in a nonpartisan fashion,” as well as protect federal employees from political coercion at work.

Noem’s video was received by airports on Thursday and was followed up by a verbal request from DHS officials to play it at security checkpoints, multiple airport officials told The Times.

The reasons the video is not being shown for California fliers varies.

In Orange County, airport spokesperson AnnaSophia Servin said that Homeland Security requested, to the airport’s director, that the video be played, but a final decision has not yet been made. In Burbank, political messaging is prohibited, officials said. In San José, an airport spokesperson said there have been no shutdown impacts and therefore no reason to play the video.

At San Francisco International Airport, officials determined that the video wasn’t helpful.

“SFO limits messaging at our security checkpoints to information intended to help passengers be prepared to go through the security screening process,” a spokesperson said in an email. “Any content, whether in video or print form, which does not meet this standard, will not be shown.”

When The Times asked Homeland Security officials to respond to airports not playing Noem’s video, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin responded with Noem’s video statement blaming Democrats.

But California airports aren’t the only locations choosing not to play Noem’s message.

Airports in Oregon, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Atlanta, Phoenix, Seattle have also opted not to play it.

“We did not consent to playing the video in its current form, as we believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits use of public assets for political purposes and messaging,” said Molly Prescott, a spokesperson for the Port of Portland, which manages Portland International Airport, said in a statement.

Oregon law also prohibits public employees from politicking on the job.

“We believe consenting to playing this video on Port assets would violate Oregon law,” she said.

Officials in New York also pushed back against airing the video.

“It is inappropriate, unacceptable, and inconsistent with the values we expect from our nation’s top public officials,” New York’s Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins said in a statement. “The [Public Service Announcement] politicizes the impacts of a federal government shutdown on TSA Operations, and the County finds the tone to be unnecessarily alarmist.”

According to the Homeland Security website, more than 61,000 TSA employees continue to work despite a lapse in appropriations, and a lack of a paycheck to employees.

Oct. 15 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security said it has credible intelligence that Mexican cartels have placed bounties on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection officers.

The Tuesday statement from DHS said criminal networks have instructed “U.S.-based sympathetics,” including Chicago street gangs, to “monitor, harass and assassinate” federal agents.

According to the federal agencies, the cartels are offering $2,000 for gathering intelligence, between $5,000 and $10,000 for kidnapping and assaults on standard ICE and CBP officers and up to $50,000 to assassinate high-ranking officials.

“These criminal networks are not just resisting the rule of law, they are waging an organized campaign of terror against the brave men and women who protected our borders and communities,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said.

ICE has been conducting an immigration crackdown in Chicago, employing aggressive tactics, such as the use of tear gas and forced entries, that have drawn criticism over the use of force and accusations of intimidation against residents. Local leaders have accused the Trump administration of overreach and violating the Constitution.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to deploy the National Guard to the city, but federal judges have blocked or delayed the move.

“ICE is recklessly throwing tear gas into our neighborhoods and busy streets, including near children at school and CPD officers,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday in a statement.

“The Trump administration must stop their deployment of dangerous chemical weapons into the air of peaceful American communities.”

Trump has criticized out at Pritzker for resisting troop deployments, saying he and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers.”

According to the DHS, gangs have established so-called spotter networks in Chicago’s Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods. Groups including the Latin Kins have stationed members on rooftops with firearms and radios to track ICE and CBP movements to disrupt federal immigration raids being conducted under Operation Midway Blitz.

Last week, the Justice Department charged Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, with one count of murder-for-hire targeting a senior ICE agent involved in the Chicago operation.

Federal prosecutors alleged Martinez, identified as a Latin Kings gang member, sent a Snapchat message offering $10,000 “if u take him down” and $2,000 for information on the agent’s whereabouts.

On Oct. 3, DHS announced that more than 1,000 undocumented migrants had been detained under Operation Midway Blitz, which began Sept. 8.

California and other Democratic-led states sued the Trump administration on Monday for allegedly stripping them of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal security and disaster relief funding based on their unwillingness to aid in federal immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit comes just days after a federal judge in a separate case barred the administration from conditioning similar federal grant funding on states rescinding their so-called “sanctuary” policies protecting immigrants.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said the latest funding reduction — which the states were notified of over the weekend — flew in the face of last week’s ruling. He criticized it as an illegal effort to force Democratic states into complying with a federal immigration campaign they have no legal obligation to support.

“Tell me, how does defunding California’s efforts to protect against terrorism make our communities safer?” Bonta said in a statement. “President Trump doesn’t like that we won’t be bullied into doing his bidding, ignoring our sovereign right to make decisions about how our law enforcement resources are best used to protect our communities.”

The White House referred questions on the lawsuit to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

The agency has previously argued that its core mission is to defend the nation’s security against threats, including from illegal immigration, and therefore that it should be able to withhold funding from states that it believes are not upholding or are actively undermining that mission.

The funding in question — billions of dollars annually — is distributed to the states to “prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters,” and have been distributed “evenhandedly” for decades by administrations of both political parties, the states’ lawsuit argues.

The funding, authorized by Congress in part after disasters such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, pays for things such as the salaries and training of first responders, testing of state computer systems for vulnerabilities to cyber attacks, mutual aid compacts among regional partners and emergency responses to disasters, the states said in their lawsuit.

Bonta’s office said California expected about $165 million, but was notified it would receive $110 million, a cut of $55 million, or a third of its funding. Other blue states saw even greater reductions, with Illinois seeing a 69% reduction and New York receiving a 79% reduction, it said.

Other states that are supporting the Trump administration’s immigration policies received large increases, and some more than 100% increases, the suing states said.

They said the notifications provided no justification for the reductions, noting only that they were made at the direction of Homeland Security. And yet, the reason was clear, they said, including because of recent comments by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials who have stated outright that states who do not cooperate with federal immigration policies and that maintain sanctuary policies would see reduced funding.

“The explanation for DHS and FEMA’s last-minute decision to reallocate $233 million in homeland security funds — the Reallocation Decision — is apparent. Although DHS has for decades administered federal grant programs in a fair and evenhanded manner, the current Administration is taking money from its enemies,” the states wrote in their lawsuit. “Or, as defendant Secretary Noem put it succinctly in a February 19 internal memorandum, States whose policies she dislikes ‘should not receive a single dollar of the Department’s money.’”

The states also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order to immediately block the funding cuts — and prevent the Federal Emergency Management Agency from disbursing any related funds that could not be recouped later — as the case proceeds.

Just last week, a federal judge ruled that the administration setting immigration-related conditions on similar emergency funding was “arbitrary and capricious,” and unconstitutional.

“DHS justifies the conditions by pointing to its broad homeland security mission, but the grants at issue fund programs such as disaster relief, fire safety, dam safety, and emergency preparedness,” the judge in that case wrote. “Sweeping immigration-related conditions imposed on every DHS-administered grant, regardless of statutory purpose, lack the necessary tailoring.”

Last month, another judge ruled in a third case that the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Los Angeles or other local jurisdictions based on their sanctuary policies.

In their lawsuit Monday, California and the other states argued that the Trump administration appeared “undeterred” by last week’s ruling against pre-conditioning funding on immigration enforcement cooperation.

After being “frustrated in its first attempt to coerce [the states] into enforcing federal civil immigration law,” the states wrote, “DHS took yet another lawless action” by simply reallocating funding to “more favored jurisdictions” willing to support the administration’s immigration crackdown.

Bonta said the law requires such funding to be distributed based on objective assessments of “threat and risk,” but the weekend notifications showed the Trump administration doing little more than “rushing to work around last week’s order” and “force and coerce” blue states into compliance in a new way.

“This is a lawless, repeat offender administration that keeps breaking the law,” he said.

Bonta said the lawsuit is the 40th his office has filed against the current Trump administration to date. He said his office was in conversation with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office, and that they both believe that “we deserve all the funding that has been appropriated to us.”

Joining California in Monday’s lawsuit were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia. All were also party to the litigation challenging preconditions on such funding that was decided last week.

George Retes Jr. grew up in Southern California, and when he turned 18, he decided to serve in the U.S. Army, he said, because he wanted to be part of something bigger than himself.

After a tour of duty in Iraq, Retes moved back to Ventura County this year to find a job and spend more time with his wife and two young children. In February, he began working as a contracted security guard for Glass House Farms at its cannabis greenhouses in Camarillo. Then, on July 10, everything changed as ICE raided Glass House — one of its largest immigration raids ever — while he was trying to get to work.

Federal officers surrounded Retes and pushed him to the ground. He could hardly breathe, he said, as officers knelt on his back and neck. He was arrested, jailed for three days and was not allowed to make a phone call or see an attorney, according to the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that is representing him.

President Trump’s Department of Homeland Security never charged Retes with a crime. But after he wrote an op-ed about his experience this month, DHS started issuing new accusations against him — saying he was arrested for assault during the raid, which the 25-year-old veteran has denied. Retes said he never resisted, and now is being targeted for retaliation because he spoke out about an arrest he sees as unlawful.

“My whole point in sharing my story, I’m trying to warn as many people as possible,” he said in an interview this week. “It doesn’t matter if you’re [politically] left, right, if you voted for Trump, hate him, love him, it doesn’t matter. This affects all of us.”

On July 10, Retes was headed to work around 2 p.m., and the narrow road leading to the farm was logjammed, he said. He weaved his compact white Hyundai forward, past parked cars and protesters, determined to make it to his shift.

He stopped short when he came upon a line of federal officers who blocked his path to the farm. Retes, 25, wearing shorts and a hoodie, got out of his car and tried to tell the federal agents that he worked at the farm.

Agents ignored him, he said, and instead told him to get out of the way. So he got back in his car, and as he tried to back up, agents began lobbing tear gas canisters toward the crowd to disperse them. Retes began hacking and coughing as the gas seeped into his car and federal officers began pounding on his car door. He said they gave him instructions to move that were contradictory.

The agents smashed his car window, pepper sprayed him, pulled him out of the car and arrested him, he said. He was handcuffed, and after his three days in jail, he was released without any explanation.

In his Sept. 16 opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle — entitled “I’m a U.S. citizen who was wrongly arrested and held by ICE. Here’s why you could be next” — Retes detailed his ordeal. He has begun to take legal action to sue the U.S. government under the Federal Tort Claims Act. More than 360 people were arrested in the raid, including numerous undocumented immigrants, and one person died.

“I served my country. I wore the uniform, I stood watch, and I believe in the values we say make us different. And yet here, on our own soil, I was wrongfully detained,” he wrote. “Stripped of my rights, treated like I didn’t belong and locked away — all as an American citizen and a veteran … if it can happen to me, it can happen to any one of us.”

Homeland Security officials did not respond to a request for comment or answer questions about their claim of assault.

Previously, an unnamed spokesperson for Homeland Security said he was released without a charge, and his case was being reviewed, along with others, “for potential federal charges related to the execution of the federal search warrant in Camarillo.”

A day after Retes’ opinion piece was published, the agency said Retes “became violent and refused to comply with law enforcement. He challenged agents and blocked their route by refusing to move his vehicle out of the road. CBP arrested Retes for assault.”

The agency denied that U.S. citizens were being wrongfully arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The post stated that operations were “highly targeted.”

“This kind of garbage has led to a more than 1000% increase in the assaults on enforcement officers,” the agency said.

Retes said he was astounded to learn the agency’s latest claims about July 10 — moments that were captured on video. He says DHS officials are lying.

“I was in shock,” he said. The agency had “an opportunity to say ‘OK, what we did was wrong, we’ll take responsibility.’ … It’s crazy that they’re willing to stand 10 toes down and die on a hill of lying and say I assaulted officers.”

Anya Bidwell, his attorney and senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, said it is significant that the government chose to respond only after his piece was published.

“When people in this country stand up to this government, this government responds with fury,” Bidwell said. “They’re trying to impose their own version of reality. It’s so important for people like George to say, ‘I know who I am and I know what happened to me, you can’t just frame it as something that it’s not.’”

In an aerial video that captured the initial confrontation, Retes is seen driving up to the line of agents. He steps outside of his car and remains by the driver side as he tries to reason with the agents. About 20 seconds later, he gets back in his car as the agents press forward. Within seconds they surround his car, at the same time pressing protesters back as they begin to lob tear gas canisters.

Inside his car, Retes starts to record on his phone. He’s backing up slowly, at an angle, until tear gas makes difficult to see where he’s going, he said.

“I’m trying to leave!” he says as agents bang on his car. There’s a loud crack as they break his car glass window. “OK I’m sorry!”

The agents pepper-spray him and detain him. One video posted online shows a group of agents surrounding Retes, who is face down on the road. Another agent hops in his car and drives it forward and off to the side of the road.

Retes said one agent knelt on his neck and another on his back. He was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, and he was kept in a cell with a protester who was also arrested. While in jail, he said, he missed his daughter’s third birthday.

After he was released, Retes said he was suspended from his job without pay for two weeks because of the arrest, and when he came back, his regular shifts were no longer available. Staying on would make it difficult to see his family, so he had to leave, he said.

He also had to spend about $1,200 getting his car window fixed and detailed from the tear gas, he said.

Despite the Trump administration’s actions, Retes said his faith in the government and accountability for justice remains steady. Just like when he joined the Army, he said, he still hangs on to a sense of unity to stand up for the country’s values.

“I still believe justice can be restored — that’s why I’m standing up and speaking out,” he said. “I think it’s important now more than ever for us to be unified and standing up for our rights together. Especially when they have the audacity to try to lie, especially to the public.”

The company behind the wildly popular Pokémon franchise says it doesn’t want its characters used for propaganda.

The Department of Homeland Security uploaded a Pokémon-themed montage of various ICE raids to social media earlier this week.

The connection to the beloved franchise was clear, as the recognizable theme song played, the original animation appeared and even its signature blue and yellow text materialized.

The video angered many fans. The Japanese gaming company said the federal agency was not authorized to use its original content.

“We are aware of a recent video posted by the Department of Homeland Security that includes imagery and language associated with our brand,” wrote the Pokémon Company International in a statement to The Times. “Our company was not involved in the creation or distribution of this content, and permission was not granted for the use of our intellectual property.”

The Pokémon-inspired video is still live on the agency’s X account.

The posted video included the anime theme song, with the lyrics “Gotta catch ‘em all,” playing over segments of federal agents handcuffing people and imagery of a Pokémon character and the Pokéballs used to capture monsters in the game.

It concluded with several mock-ups of Pokémon playing cards with photographs of detainees, which included their full names, crimes they have committed and details about their convictions and sentencing.

The DHS’ social media feeds are full of provocative imagery and videos that borrow from popular media.

It used Jay-Z’s “Public Service Announcement” last month. It reportedly received a copyright violation complaint and had to be taken down.

In July, the DHS X account posted a video montage, which used audio from 2022’s “The Batman” and displayed a Bible verse onscreen. Paintings, from artists like Thomas Kinkade, Morgan Weistling and John Gast have also been utilized by the federal agency.

Comedian Theo Von recently complained about being used in one of these videos. DHS used a video of him saying, “Heard you got deported, dude,” as he nods his head in disappointment, in one of their video edits.

On Tuesday, he posted on X, saying, “And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos. When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

The video has since been taken down.

Aug. 31 (UPI) — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Sunday confirmed the Trump administration plans to increase immigration resources in Chicago amid a planned federal crackdown on crime in the city.

In an appearance on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Noem said Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be expanding operations in Chicago to “go after the worst of the worst in the country, like President [Donald] Trump has told us to do.”

She said the agency would be “focusing on those that are perpetuating murder and rape and trafficking of drugs and humans across our country, knowing that every single citizen deserves to be safe.”

Noem’s comments come after weeks of Trump leveraging federal resources — namely the National Guard — to target crime in cities he deems unsafe. He deployed troops to Washington, D.C., in August to crack down on crime, which he described as “out of control.”

Speaking Aug. 11 about the deployment, Trump called out other cities with high crime, including Chicago, Baltimore, Oakland, Calif., and New York City. He followed that up Saturday with a Truth Social post calling Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “weak and pathetic,” saying he should straighten out crime or “we’re coming.”

In response to Trump’s threats to send National Guard troops to Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson on Saturday signed an executive order seeking to avoid militarization in the city. The order demands that Trump end “his threats to deploy the National Guard” to Chicago.

“I do not take this executive action lightly,” Johnson said during a signing ceremony. “I would’ve preferred to work more collaboratively to pass legislation … but unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of time. We have received credible reports that we have days, not weeks, before our city sees some kind of militarized activity by the federal government.”

In an appearance on Face the Nation, Pritzker said no one in the Trump administration has reach out to him or any other officials in Chicago about a possible deployment of National Guard troops to the city, which he described as “an invasion.” He said federal agencies should coordinate with local law enforcement.

“But they don’t want to do that either, and I must say, it’s disruptive, it’s dangerous,” Pritzker said. “It tends to inflame passions on the ground when they don’t let us know what their plans are, and when we can’t coordinate with them.”

He said if Trump does send National Guard troops to Chicago, he’ll take it to the courts.

“Any kind of troops on the streets of an American city don’t belong unless there is an insurrection, unless there is truly an emergency,” he said. “There is not.”

Aug. 28 (UPI) — The Department of Homeland Security plans to introduce a new rule capping the length of stay for international students, among other visa changes, amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The new rule will stipulate that foreign students who hold F visas and exchange visitors with J visas can reside in the United States for the duration of their program, but not to exceed four years. Since 1978, foreign F visa holders have been admitted to the United States for an unspecified period, allowing them to reside in the country as long as they are enrolled as full-time students.

The Trump administration says this move will “end foreign student visa abuse.”

“For too long, past administrations have allowed foreign students and other visa holders to remain in the U.S. virtually indefinitely, posing safety risks, costing untold amounts of taxpayer dollars and disadvantaging U.S. citizens,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement.

“This new proposed rule would end that abuse once and for all by limiting the amount of time certain visa holders are allowed to remain in the U.S., easing the burden on the federal government to properly oversee foreign students and their history.”

Trump ran on a campaign to conduct mass deportations of non-citizens, and since returning to the White House in January has cracked down on immigration.

A focus of this crackdown has been universities, with the State Department earlier this month confirming that 6,000 student visas have been revoked so far this year.

Last week, the State Department announced plans to investigate all 55 million foreigners in the country with visas.

The new rule was swiftly rebuked by international education advocates as unnecessarily creating burdens for foreign students and exchange visitors.

“These changes will only serve to force aspiring students and scholars into a sea of administrative delays at best and, at worst, into unlawful presence status — leaving them vulnerable to punitive actions through no fault of their own,” Fanta Aw, executive direct and CEO of NAFAS: Association of International Educators, said in a statement.

Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, described the rule as “yet another unnecessary and counterproductive action” targeting students and scholars.

“This proposed rule sends a message to talented individuals from around the world that their contributions are not valued in the Unite States,” Feldblum said in a statement.

“This is not only detrimental to international students — it also weakens the ability of U.S. colleges and universities to attract top talent, diminishing our global competitiveness.”

The new measure also sets an initial admission period of up to 240 days for foreign media representatives, with the potential for an extension period of up to another 240 days, but no longer than the lengthen of their temporary activity or assignment.