Two NC State students leave the country after visas revoked by Trump administration
Update: NC State University Chancellor Randy Woodson says the students whose visas were canceled were in good standing at the school, and that university officials have yet to receive an explanation from the federal government. Read the full story here.
Two international students at NC State University have left the country after their visas were terminated by the administration of President Donald Trump, the university announced Tuesday.
The university learned that the visas — which international students are required to obtain in order to study and enroll at U.S. colleges — had been terminated on March 25, according to an unsigned statement from the university’s Office of International Services.
The university “did not initiate these terminations and was not directly notified of these changes,” the statement read, adding that staff at the Office of International Services confirmed the terminations with federal government officials. The office “contacted the students to advise them about the potential consequences of these changes and provide resources for them,” per the statement.
“In consultation with their home country embassies and private immigration attorneys, both students made the decision to depart the United States,” according to the university.
The university did not name the students. But in a letter to the editor published in the Technician, NC State’s student newspaper, fourth-year student Philip Vasto wrote that both students are from Saudi Arabia, and that one of them was “Sal,” his roommate. A separate Technician news article about the terminations further identified that student as Saleh Al Gurad, who is studying engineering management.
The termination of the NC State students’ visas comes as the Trump administration in recent weeks has increasingly targeted international university students, especially those who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio also ordering federal officials to scrutinize the social media accounts of those applying for student visas.
On Friday, days after NC State learned that the two students’ visas had been terminated, Rubio said he had signed more than 300 letters revoking the visas of students and other visitors to the country since Trump took office in January, The New York Times reported.
The N&O contacted Al Gurad by email Wednesday, but has not yet heard back.
Why were visas revoked?
The reasoning for Al Gurad and the other, unidentified student having their visas revoked remains unclear.
In an interview with The News & Observer, Vasto said Al Gurad had begun studying at NC State this semester. Al Gurad received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Central Michigan University in 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile and an online copy of the CMU commencement program.
Since moving into an apartment with Vasto in December, Al Gurad had been a “a very low-key guy,” Vasto said. He was “gainfully employed” with a job on campus, Vasto said.
The roommates were at their apartment when Al Gurad came out of his room with “a very blank and grave look on his face” and told Vasto that university officials had just informed him of the revocation.
“There was no reason issued to him, none whatsoever,” Vasto said.
Vasto, in his letter to the editor and in speaking to The N&O, said he did not know Al Gurad to attend protests or post his opinions to social media.
“He was never somebody to cause any problems,” Vasto said. “He was just a very nice guy who kept to himself, and it’s quite surprising this happened.”
Juliette Majid, a doctoral student in chemistry and a member of the NC State chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, told The News & Observer she was not aware of either student being involved with the organization, which has been active in organizing pro-Palestinian protests. Still, the group is concerned about two fellow university students having their visas revoked.
“While there are no known ties between these two visa revocations to freedom of speech or pro-Palestine speech for either student, this aligns with the trends that we’ve been seeing about visas being revoked, citing pro-Palestine social media content and targeting Palestinian and pro-Palestinian solidarity organizers across the nation,” Majid said.
Majid also expressed concerns about how the visas were revoked, which apparently occurred with little notice or communication between the federal government and university officials. In the statement from the Office of International Services, NC State officials said they “are deeply concerned about the lack of communication from federal agencies and the impact of these actions on our international students.”
Visa revocation process
Historically, student visas may have been revoked because a student is charged with an offense like driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances, according to Richard Herman, an Ohio-based attorney who has run a firm specializing in immigration law for 30 years.
But the Trump administration is revoking visas in “unprecedented” ways, both in terms of the scale and tactics of the effort, Herman said. For instance, Herman said, the administration appears to be justifying many of the revocations by using a provision of the Immigration Act that is “rarely ever used” and allows the secretary of State to deny visas to anyone believed to have done something that could “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
Still, when a student’s visa is terminated, they are not required to leave the country or their university, Herman said.
In addition to a visa, though, international students are assigned a record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a federal database maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. If those records are terminated — as the NC State students’ records were, according to the university — they are deemed “out of status,” Herman said, and “subject to being placed in deportation” or other removal proceedings.
Herman said students who have their visas or SEVIS records revoked have the option to fight the orders, but doing so can come with hefty expenses and the outcomes of those efforts may vary depending on where the student is located or where they are detained. Herman noted that Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who was recently detained by federal agents near Tufts University in Massachusetts, is now being held in Louisiana — where court decisions could be more conservative and “less friendly” than those near the university.
Given the resources needed to fight a visa revocation and that the federal government has nearly “unlimited resources to prosecute” the cases, Herman said, it’s “not unreasonable” for students who are impacted to flee the country.
Vasto said Al Gurad decided to leave the country in part because he was concerned that he might be detained or targeted by immigration officials if he decided to stay and fight for his visa.
“We were thinking that literally, at any minute, these people could be knocking on our door trying to get him,” Vasto said.
International students at NC State
Al Gurad told Vasto in a text message Monday that he had arrived back in his home country on Sunday.
NC State said both students who left the country will be permitted to continue their coursework online, away from campus.
“We are committed to assisting these two students in any way we can, including completing the semester from abroad,” the university’s statement read.
According to a 2024 report by the U.S. Department of State, NC State enrolled more than 3,700 international students during the 2023-24 academic year, most of whom were graduate students. NC State enrolls the most international students of any school in the public UNC System and hosts the second-most international students of any university in the state, according to federal data.
NC State enrolls students from more than 100 countries, with Saudi Arabia ranking seventh in the number of students originating from that country.
“Our NC State international students, faculty and staff remain critically important members of our community and we deeply value the talent, ideas and insight that they bring to our campus,” the university’s statement read.
Reporter Lexi Solomon contributed.
In the Spotlight designates ongoing topics of high interest that are driven by The News & Observer’s focus on accountability reporting.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Two NC State students leave the country after visas revoked by Trump administration."
