Four international students at the University of Alaska Anchorage had their visas revoked without warning or explanation, University of Alaska President Pat Pitney announced on Monday, as the Trump administration’s attack on foreign college students ramps up.
“This week, we learned that the federal government has revoked visas for four individuals affiliated with UAA — one current student and three recent graduates in post-graduation training — without prior notice,” she wrote. “These immigration issues do not impact a student’s academic standing at UA. Our international students and scholars are vital members of our community, and we remain fully committed to supporting their success.”
The announcement also highlighted tens of millions of federal dollars that have been either withheld, canceled, or are otherwise on hold by the Trump administration. That includes $3.8 million that has been canceled, $1.6 million that has been frozen, and another $46 million contract that was canceled but has since been put on hold.
The news comes after the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents, led by its most conservative members, approved a surprise resolution at its February board meeting to preemptively bow to the Trump administration’s efforts to dictate what goes on in higher education nationwide.
Their resolution censored any mentions of words that fell under the right-wing boogeyman of diversity, equity and inclusion, with members claiming that it was about protecting the university system – specifically its federal funding – from capricious cuts. The preemptive act of self-censorship hasn’t sat well with students, university employees or legislators. At a hearing last week, Juneau Democratic Sen. Jesse Kiehl said the resolution “absolutely toadies to the federal government. Toadies, bootlicks, rolls over and submissively wets.”
The visa revocations appear to be the first targeting university students in Alaska as the Trump administration has looked to accelerate deportations and detentions of foreign students. The broader effort, which has seen students detained by plain-clothes immigration officers, has been met with shock and outrage from immigration advocates.
While visa revocations have typically required a relatively high bar – namely a conviction – the Trump administration has used as little as simple, typically flimsy accusations of misconduct to revoke visas and detain and deport international students. In a statement that should make all of our blood run cold, Anchorage-based immigration attorney Nicholas Olano told the Alaska Beacon that international students should probably refrain from exercising rights the U.S. Constitution nominally protects.
“It’s horrible; I’m having to say this because I think that the First Amendment, the Constitution, covers every single individual that is in the United States presently,” he said. “But at this moment, you should not exercise your right to free speech because you can have consequences. That’s the most un-American thing ever. But I’m saying it.”
But at least one of the students, Jean Kashikov of Khazakstan, told the Anchorage Daily News that he hadn’t participated in any such advocacy.
Instead, he said it looked like they were going after him – with the UAA international student advisor warning that he could be arrested and detained by the feds – for a speeding ticket in Georgia. In other communication, it said that he could be removed from the country but not returned to Khazakstan (likely a reference to the mega prison in El Salvador at the focus of Trump’s efforts to expel foreign students).
Rather than face a disappearment by the feds, Kashikov told the ADN that he was planning on leaving as quickly as possible, cutting short a year that he had planned to work as a flight instructor in Anchorage and Mat-Su after earning degrees in math and professional piloting from UAA.
“I started calling my friends, calling my customers, telling them that, you know, ‘I’m so terribly sorry, but I have to abandon you all and leave right now,'” he told the paper, later adding that when Trump crows about deporting criminals, “I just want people to know that the kind of people he is talking about is me.”
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
