>> More than 300 international students have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration in recent days.

That group includes students attending Northwestern the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, which has one of the highest international student enrolments in the country.

The White House pushing for more cancellations raises concerns over what it all means for students and higher education.

Joining us now with more is at young cub, that communications director for the ACLU.

Ed, Welcome back.

So it's good to be back.

The Trump administration is citing national security when revoking student visas.

What's your reaction to that argument?

It's not clear what national security cause actually, as with the threat actually is.

>> These are people who are here who are attending school, who are adding to both the the in enriching both the campuses on which they study, but also the body of knowledge that we have in the U.S. and suddenly, you know, they get an email in the middle of the night suggesting that they're kicked out and need to be gone in a short period of time.

I think it's really troubling and there ought to be, you know, much more process and much more transparency about what's actually going on here is the administration citing any other reasons beyond those campus protests from the last year over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza?

Well, thats the part.

I think that's really interesting about this brand you know, we've seen, you know, my mood khaleel and other students who been specifically detained and deported over their speech and what we've heard about these revocations this sort of rash, number of locations that we've seen recently is is that these are not necessarily speech related, but other sort of vague kinds of of things it does raise.

I think the concern about whether or not there's an underlying kind of speech or racial motivation to any of this are exactly what is driving this on the part of the administration.

So, yes, I'd say, you know, there's there's not a lot of other reasons being given, but I think speech and freedom of expression, freedom of association is something that all of us ought to be concerned about with this.

So U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed his reasoning in a cabinet meeting last week.

Here's >> If you come to this country as a student, we expected to go to class and study and get a degree.

If you come here to like vandalize a library, take over a campus and do all kinds of crazy things.

You know, we're going to get rid of these people and we're going to continue to do it.

So when we identify lunatics like these, we take away their student visa.

No one entitled to a student visa.

>> Ed, your thoughts?

I first of all, the idea that the secretary of State of the United States is labeling student says Luna tax without having any information about any of them.

Secondly, if they vandalized something that's a crime and they ought to be charged with a crime.

People are not being charged with crime.

Instead they're being punished for their speech.

You know, recently, ice actually said that they weren't going to let bad thoughts into the United States.

That was something that they actually put on their their social media accounts and then pulled them back.

The reality is, is that, you know, this is an administration that doesn't like people who take a different view than they do.

They don't like people.

They don't like something like a university that could be a center for study that would disprove the kind of wild conspiracy theories that they like the spin around.

And so, you know, universities and the students are easy place for them to punish, but also to eliminate any critics of this administration.

Do international students today have the, you know, the same rights to protest and free speech as American students?

I mean, because like you mentioned if you've and allies library, if you're an American student, then you're charged with a crime.

You're not sent.

>> The president suggested today he may want to send people they'll Salvador who are U.S. citizens.

But let's talk for a minute about those rights.

Think it's a really important point.

The Constitution of the United States says that we have the right to free speech free expression in this country.

We have the right to petition and air our grievances against the government.

Never wants reserves that right to citizens.

Anyone whose present the founders knew when to use the word citizen and when not to.

And they only use that when it was when it was called for.

They do not.

It is not there in terms of the First Amendment.

All of us have the right to free speech.

Weather word, a citizen or not.

Now all of this said, though, universities are still being asked to sort of reckon with their their the anti Semitic attacks that they might be experiencing on campus.

Just today, the Daily Northwestern reporting.

>> Graffiti and fliers being found on campus.

How should schools balance the rights of Jewish students obviously and other marginalized groups to be safe with the rights of other students to to protest and have free speech.

I'm glad you said ballots it because unfortunately we feel we seem to have gotten out of balance where there are students who aren't safe because of Anti-Semitic attacks where there is Anti-Semitism being demonstrated in that way.

>> You know, that's a place where universities have to act because one of their where obligations is to ensure that everyone feels safe campus to make sure that everybody has the experience to be able to learn and grow and mature.

But at the same time, a part of that learning growing maturing is protesting.

And just because somebody is protesting about something that makes you uncomfortable isn't a reason to stop that person for protesting.

But if those attacks become directed at people are personal involve criminal acts, then that is a place where certainly universities need to step in and act.

>> Universities themselves.

They're being very quiet about This issue, many of them not even confirming the number of students on their campuses or in of among their enrollment who being impacted.

What does all that tell you?

>> It tells me that the bullying tactics of the administration aimed at universities and other institutions is working because this is a this thing.

This is that this is a place where we ought to have full transparency.

We ought to know the number of people who been revoked.

We ought to know why they've been revoked.

Not necessarily information about individuals but information about the circumstances under which individuals are having their visas revoked because we want to have a public discussion about it.

One of the things when we talk about free speech and we rarely talk about is unless you and I know what our government is doing, there's no way for us to debate whether those policies are correct.

I think the universities are doing this service to their students but being so quiet.

But they're doing it because they're being threatened and bullied and coerced.

You know, by the administration because the first university, the steps out of line on this is going to be threatened with a cutoff of funding the way that we've seen other universities, you know, deal with those threats that came up earlier in our conversation as well.

And the federal government reportedly checking social media accounts of immigrants.

What do you make of that?

>> I think again, this is one of those things that just a horrible idea.

I mean, the fact notion that somehow in order to become a citizen to get a visa to come here, we're going to have the government rifle through your social media, look who you're associating.

What with look at what kind of account you look at who you follow and who you like.

That doesn't really tell us anything about anyone.

You know, it just so happens on social media.

I follow Donald Trump.

I assure you I am no fan of Donald Trump's, but but somehow they're going to read something into that social media.

The reality is is that this allows for people to make arbitrary and capricious decisions about people based on what they're doing on social media.

That's not how we should handle who we allow into the country and who we don't.

Obviously a lot to keep