The University of Massachusetts Amherst confirmed Saturday that five international students at the school have had their visas revoked by federal authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Javier Reyes, chancellor of the university, called the incidents \u201ctroubling news\u201d in a letter that was published online Friday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn each of the five cases, the students\u2019 legal status to remain in the United States has been revoked,\u201d Reyes wrote<\/a>. \u201cThe university was not notified by federal authorities of these status revocations and only became aware as a result of proactive checks in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u2019s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He added that the school is working with the Massachusetts attorney general, and he advised international students on school-sponsored visas to reach out to UMass\u2019 Office of Global Affairs if they \u201creceive any communications (phone calls or emails) purporting to be from the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokesperson for the university said officials there have \u201cno reason to believe that these revocations are connected to campus activism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They do, however, come in the wake of other instances of foreign-born students and scholars<\/a> at the University of Cincinnati, Columbia University, the University of Alabama and elsewhere who seem to have been targeted as a result of their activism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n