The heads of Iranian universities issued a statement on Sunday welcoming students deported from America for supporting Hamas, an Iran-backed terrorist organization, or other jihadist movements.
“Iran’s universities, [the statement] said, are ready to accept students who are being expelled by US immigration officials for showing sympathy for the Palestinian cause,” the Iranian state propaganda outlet PressTV reported.
PressTV did not name the universities signing the joint statement but noted that the statement indicated the Iranian jihadist regime would “facilitate” the transfer of students who support Iran’s genocidal anti-Israel positions from American colleges to Iranian ones through its “Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR).” Doing so, if the Iranian regime keeps to this promise, would serve to both attract ideologically aligned talent to the country and to increase support for Tehran on the nation’s campuses, which in the past half decade have become hotbeds of dissident sentiment. The Iranian regime has violently suppressed calls for democracy and an end to support for foreign terrorists on the nation’s campuses.
The invitation to pro-Hamas students deported from America follows a campaign launched in early March by President Donald Trump to identify violent agitators on American campuses and revoke their student and work visas. Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested last week that over 300 “lunatics” have had their visas revoked due to participation in pro-terrorism riots and other disruptive behavior.
PressTV described the individuals in question as simply “pro-Palestinian protesters,” noting that the Iranian “academic institutions” in question said in their statement that they “take pride in extending support” to these individuals.
“The acts of global arrogance in suppressing justice-seeking students,” the universities said in their joint statement, “and expelling them from American universities after their peaceful protests against the atrocities committed by the Zionist regime against the oppressed people of Palestine have further unveiled the true nature of those who claim to advocate for human rights.”
The job of “facilitating” the transfer of the students and, potentially, professors, from American to Iranian universities will fall to the SCCR “in collaboration with the Academy of Sciences and Academy of Medical Sciences,” PressTV noted. The outlet did not clarify if an equivalent process exists for transferring humanities and liberal arts students to Iran.
The current uproar on the left over the deportation of pro-Hamas students began with the arrest in early March of Mahmoud Khalil, the head of a club at Columbia University known as “Apartheid Divest.” Khalil was reportedly identified as a supporter of the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas and remains in custody at press time.
“All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests,” President Trump announced in a publication on his social media outlet, Truth Social, on March 3. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on on the crime, arrested. NO MASKS!”
Since the arrest of Khalil, several other students on American campuses have had their visas revoked. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the arrest of foreign exchange student Badar Khan Suri, attending Georgetown University, this month for allegedly “actively spreading Hamas propaganda.”
“Suri has close connections to a known or suspect terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas. The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i),” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said.
Shortly thereafter, McLaughlin confirmed the arrest and planned deportation of a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University, Rumesya Ozturk.
“DHS + ICE investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans,” McLaughlin announced. “A visa is a privilege not a right. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated. This is commonsense security.”
According to Secretary Rubio, at least 300 individuals have had their visa privileges revoked on the grounds of publicly supporting terrorist organizations. Rubio told reporters on March 28 that he personally signs the orders to revoke those visas and that “every day” the Trump administration is working to remove more.
“They’re not protesters; they’re taking over college campuses, they’re harassing fellow students,” Rubio said a day prior during a meeting with the president of Suriname, Chandrikapersad Santokhi. “We let them in our country to study. We gave them a visa because they said, I want to go to your university, I want to get a degree. They didn’t say, I want to go to university and I want to vandalize your library, and I want to chase Jewish students down the street, and I want to wear a mask over my face like if it’s Halloween and terrorize people.”
“We didn’t give them a visa to do any of that,” he added.
“People pay a lot of money to go to these schools. They borrow money to go to these schools, and you can’t even go to class because some lunatic who’s covering their face is running through campus,” he continued, “spraypainting things, harassing people. And they’re in my country as a guest. We want them out. Every one of them I find, we’re going to kick them out.”
The message this weekend is not the first time that Iran offers entry to students rejected in America for pro-terrorist agitation. In May, Shiraz University announced that it would welcome not just foreign students studying in America, but American students and professors facing disciplinary action for participating in violent campus riots in support of Hamas.
“Students and even professors who have been expelled or threatened with expulsion can continue their studies at Shiraz University and I think that other universities in Shiraz as well as Fars Province are also prepared [to provide the conditions],” the president of the university, Mohammad Moazzeni, announced at the time.
The “supreme leader” of the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, himself offered support to the violent pro-Hamas movements on campuses at the time.
Dear university students in the United States of America, you are standing on the right side of history.
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) May 29, 2024
The support for students on American campuses is a dramatic departure from the repressive crackdowns against Iranian students at home, who tend to oppose the regime’s Islamist totalitarianism and support for foreign terror movements over investing in the country. Iran faces near-annual waves of campus protests to which it responds by deploying its violent repressive police. Support for Hamas, in particular, has led to protests demanding Iran stop funneling regime resources to foreign jihadists; in late 2023, following the Hamas massacres in Israel that year, Iranian students reportedly began protesting against their regime by supporting Israel.
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