00:00Representative Jayapal. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary Rubio for being here. On March 21st, 2025, the State Department approved the revocation of a student visa for Rameza Ozturk, a Turkish citizen who is a graduate student at Tufts University, apparently simply for writing an op-ed.
00:20According to an internal State Department memo, you took this action under your discretionary authority to revoke visas, and soon after you revoked her visa, armed and masked plainclothes officers snatched Ms. Ozturk off the street and transported her to a prison in Louisiana.
00:38Mr. Secretary, do you really think that Ms. Ozturk's op-ed results in a foreign policy consequence for the United States?
00:45I believe that case involves someone whose visa we never would have granted had we known ahead of time.
00:48I'm not asking you that question. I'm asking you if you think an op-ed, if an op-ed, which, but that's exactly, in fact, what happened.
00:57The State Department wrote a memo concluding that you did not have sufficient grounds to revoke Ms. Ozturk's visa.
01:04There was no evidence showing that she'd engaged in any activities were a threat to national security.
01:09And in fact, in May, a federal court ordered Ms. Ozturk's release from detention, noting that the sole basis, sole basis for the government's detention appeared to be the fact
01:18that she co-authored this opinion piece in the Tufts newspaper in March of 2024.
01:24Where in the Constitution does it say that the Secretary of State can override the First Amendment protections of free speech?
01:34Is there a footnote that I missed somewhere?
01:36There's no constitutional right to a student visa.
01:38But is there a constitutional right?
01:40Does it say somewhere that Marco Rubio gets to determine whether, which speech is appropriate and revoke student visas based on what you think constitutes free speech?
01:50There's a statute that says the Secretary of State gets to determine whether someone is a threat.
01:54We deny visas every day all over the world.
01:57Do you think that the INA, do you think that the Immigration and Nationality Act trumps the Constitution of the United States, Mr. Secretary?
02:01Well, Congress can always change the law if you want.
02:03But I'm telling you, while I have the authority, I will continue to revoke the visas of these people that come here to tear this country.
02:09You said that, Mr. Secretary.
02:09Let me reclaim my time because you are talking about revoking student visas based on what somebody says.
02:15And that means that you are trumping the legal, supreme law of the land, which is the Constitution of the United States.
02:25Why did the administration, Mr. Rubio, why did the administration need to use masked, armed, unidentified agents to whisk somebody off the street and deny her counsel for almost 24 hours after her arrest?
02:37Well, you'll have to ask the agencies that did that work.
02:39I'm not responsible for that.
02:40I'm responsible for revoking the visas of these people that come to tear this country apart.
02:44Secretary Rubio, I'm talking about this particular case where you revoke the student visa of a Turkish citizen, a Turkish citizen who was a graduate student who wrote an op-ed that you didn't like.
02:54And suddenly you allowed for masked men to whisk her off the street.
02:58And you have multiple jobs, apparently.
03:00You're the national security advisor as well.
03:02So don't tell me it's not your job who snatches her off the street.
03:06We don't do the snatching, but I can tell you we do the visa revocations.
03:09Let me ask you about the national security consequences of people, masked men on the streets, snatching people off the streets.
03:17If these are legitimate law enforcement agents carrying out proper arrests, why are they hiding their identities?
03:22Because then radical crazies will try to hurt them.
03:26So you think that U.S. agents who have almost always gone without face coverings, even when they're arresting some of the most, some of the country's most dangerous criminals, suddenly have so much to fear from a graduate student who wrote an op-ed that they need to be masked?
03:42Is that accurate?
03:43That law student was a guest in the United States on a student visa.
03:46No one's entitled to a student visa.
03:47So you revoked her student visa based on an op-ed, which trumps the supreme law of the land, which is the Constitution.
03:55Someone's coming up here to stir up problems on our campus.
03:57We're going to revoke their visa.
03:58She didn't do any of that.
03:59She wrote an op-ed.
04:00She wrote an op-ed.
04:01And I'm talking to you about her particular case.
04:03You revoked her claims and your claims.
04:04Those are not the facts.
04:05Reclaiming my time, you revoked her student visa because she wrote an op-ed.
04:10And we'll do more.
04:11We're going to do more of them.
04:12I have another question for you.
04:13Would you revoke the visa of someone in the United States who published claims that, quote, Jews are an untrustworthy and dangerous group?
04:20Yes or no?
04:21We will revoke the visa of anyone who's in this country as a guest who's here to stir up trouble.
04:24Would you revoke the visa of somebody who made that statement?
04:27I mean, the case, I'll look at it.
04:28I'm looking to get crazy people out of our country forward to revoking the visas of any lunatics you can identify.
04:34Excuse me, reclaiming my time.
04:35Can you explain to me why the Trump administration granted refugee status to Charles Kleinhaus, the white Afrikaner, who tweeted that exact statement that I just said?
04:45There's the case.
04:46That's not a visa.
04:48You who granted that person to enter the United States.
04:51That's a totally different process.
04:51That's someone that applied here through a totally different process.
04:54The student visas are a privilege.
04:56Secretary Rubio, you revoked a visa based on an op-ed, and then you allowed for masked men to snatch somebody off the street.
