HOUSTON – A University of Houston math assistant professor will have to go back to his home country after his visa was terminated.
A UH spokesperson confirmed with KPRC 2 Tuesday afternoon:
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“The faculty member has been affected by the SEVIS visa terminations based on his recent status as a doctoral student at another institution,” the spokesperson said.
Immigration attorneys tell KPRC 2 a work visa would not allow the person to be a student at the same time.
The assistant professor posted a message to his students via the campus learning management system Canvas. The message has since been shared on the social media platform Reddit.
The professor writes in the message he must return to his home country “due to the unexpected termination of my visa” and that another instructor will take over the class the rest of the semester.
UH has confirmed another instructor has been assigned to the course and said at this time, “we are not aware of any other faculty affected by visa terminations.”
Currently, there are 146 international professors at UH.
A small number of international students have also been impacted by of visa terminations, according to the university.
We spoke to Houston immigration attorney Jarred Slater about the possible reasons visa revocations may occur.
“Traditionally, it was if the government discovered some type of misrepresentation in their application or if they had been convicted of certain criminal offenses, serious misdemeanors, felonies,” said Slater.
Slater tells KPRC 2 a number of local college students have reached out to his firm because their visas were revoked.
“One, as far as we can tell, just had a traffic ticket for an expired license,” said Slater. “Another one had a fake ID, which a lot of college students underage have. These individuals are being contacted that their visas are revoked simply because they were cited or charged with an offense.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month there were more than 300 student visas being revoked, some of which have been linked to Pro-Palestinian activism.
This has left some Muslim students like ‘Ahmad’ on edge.
“The tensions really grown, especially in the Muslim community on campus and international students they’ve been told to like lay low and not go to any protests," said Ahmad.
Ahmad said he is a legal resident with a green card but is worried his religion could impact his path to naturalization.
“I talk about Islam on campus to people and even this is becoming scary for me because I’m like, what if someone like mis-associates this with me supporting something that I’m not supposed to support,” said Ahmad.
KPRC 2 has learned three international students at Rice University had their visas revoked and UH said a small number of international students on their campus also had their visas revoked.
