Levin Kim, president of the local UAW chapter, is an international student herself and checks her UW student portal every day for a message that might say her visa is being revoked too.

“ I’m not going to lie to you, I’m scared. It’s a scary time to be an international student,” she told the crowd. “But what gives me hope and what gives me strength is that we are standing alongside hundreds and thousands of federal workers, scientists, community members, other academic workers, faculty, janitors, everyone who makes this institution run across the country today. We are ready to fight back.”

Metropolitan King County Councilmember Jorge Barón told the crowd that he was standing in solidarity with them and would continue fighting for them and the students whose visas were revoked at the local level.

“In this country we’re supposed to be about free speech, and yet, because people have raised concerns about all kinds of issues, they’re having their student visas being taken away, they’re being deprived of the opportunity to continue to live in our communities,” Barón said. “And I want to say that we stand in solidarity with them.”

UW plans to provide the affected students access to legal services that are paid for by their student fees, as well as mental health and academic support.

“We are deeply concerned about the well-being of these students and graduates and are working to support them,” Balta wrote. “International students and scholars are essential and valued members of our University and they contribute immensely to our community, state and nation. The UW will continue to support them and provide the resources they need to be to able learn, teach and succeed here.”

The ACLU of Washington’s legal director said UW is right to offer students support and urged other colleges to do the same.

“The Trump administration’s sudden revocation, without any stated justification, of student visas and student status at the UW and universities nationwide violates due process principles and is an attack on international students and scholars who contribute critical perspectives to our academic communities,” La Rond Baker, the legal director, wrote in a statement.

Spokespeople for Seattle Pacific University and Western Washington University said Tuesday that no students with visas had seen changes in their statuses.

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Last spring, UW students set up an encampment on the Quad, joining similar efforts at dozens of campuses across the nation where students are demanding that their schools end financial ties to Israel.

“We have no indication these actions are due to activism or other protected free speech,” UW spokesperson Victor Balta wrote in the university statement.

One of the recent UW graduates worked — until Tuesday — in the Seattle area as part of a training program that authorizes international students for up to three years of employment after their studies. The graduate asked to remain anonymous to avoid more legal scrutiny from immigration officials.

He said he got a speeding ticket last year, which he’d paid off. He considers himself apolitical and has not participated in protests or posted on social media.

At 10 a.m. Tuesday, he logged into a university portal and saw his status had been canceled, effective immediately. Previously, it was supposed to run through mid-May, at which point he had planned to transfer his student visa to another school, where he’d been accepted into a master’s program. Without legal status, he’s now susceptible to deportation.

“This is really scary,” he said.

For weeks, he’d been following the news about student visa cancellations, scouring Reddit and other sources for clarity about the administration’s approach.

“In hindsight, I did prepare myself mentally,” he said.

He can’t work anymore. In the meantime, he plans to lie low while figuring out what kind of recourse exists for people in his position hoping to reinstate their status. As a precaution against getting apprehended by immigration enforcement, he also canceled upcoming air travel plans.

On Tuesday, a protest at the University of Washington decried the Trump administration for slashing public funds for scientific research, while also calling attention to the revocation of student visas.

“Not only do we need to say no to furloughs (and) no to the pay cuts … we’ve got to start looking at what just happened,” Paula Lukaszek,  a plumber at UW and leader of the local Washington Federation of State Employees chapter, told the crowd. “Five international students who got their visas pulled this week … we need to get it to stop.”

Tracy Bartolome, 26, who also spoke at the protest, said the Trump administration’s revocation of the five international students’ visas was a “blatant attack” that can’t be separated from Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention of Lewelyn Dixon, or “Auntie Lynn,” as Bartolome referred to her.

Dixon, a green card holder who worked as a UW lab technician, was detained at an ICE center in Tacoma in February when she returned from a trip to the Philippines. Her family’s attorney believed she was being held due to a conviction for embezzlement in 2001, though her green card had been renewed since then and she had traveled outside the country as recently as 2024. Trump is attacking UW students and workers alike, said Bartolome, an employee at UW Medical Center.

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WA college students’ visas revoked with no notice by Trump administration

The Trump administration canceled the visas of at least 15 current international students and recent graduates of Washington universities, the schools confirmed this week.

University of Washington officials learned nine visas were revoked when they ran a status check in the federal government database of international students, the university said in a statement. Five are current students and four are participating in postgraduation training.

Seattle University reported that three recent graduates completing postgraduation training had had their visas revoked.

Across the state, in Spokane, Gonzaga University also found during a recent review that two international students’ records had been terminated and their visas revoked.

“With their legal status to remain in the country revoked, these students have been put in difficult and uncertain situations, in some cases being ordered to leave the country with little notice or risk of detainment or arrest,” Gonzaga leaders said Monday in a public letter.

And in Pullman, Washington State University learned Tuesday morning that a recent graduate authorized to seek employment in the U.S. had had their visa revoked. That recent graduate, however, left the country in December.

The Washington students are among hundreds across the U.S. who were stripped of their legal status and ordered by the Department of Homeland Security to leave the country, according to universities and media reports.

The universities did not provide details about the students, such as their home countries, citing federal student privacy laws.

Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or past criminal convictions, though others said they were unaware of the reasons they had been targeted.

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Naw, it would be used to mask the disastrous consequences of Trump and the GOP’s horrific policies. I’m hoping nothing happens so Trump nothing to blame for his failures.

The FAA does take it seriously and has prosecuted people for shooting drones out of the sky.

Actively knocking it down would be a federal crime and the FAA historically does prosecute it, but a passive net that’s arguably just there to keep birds off your patio is absolutely legal.

If Hamas didn’t kill them by now the IDF definitely did.

So you think the “good guys” are the one killing hostages who escaped or killing them in airstrikes? Interesting.

Hate to be the one to break it to ya, but it doesn’t sound like you’re a liberal.

Sure the gravel pit is a half mile from the river, but it’s nestled between the fork of a smaller stream that runs right into the river.

I agree that we need to be enforcing environmental laws on any industrial facilities that are polluting, but just because there’s pollution elsewhere in the county doesn’t make pollution at the north fork ok.

It’s cute you think taxes on the common person would go down with the GOP. They would just give the elite more tax breaks and the rest of us would be left with bill and even worse services.

Apparently the criminality of someone appears to have little to no bearing on ICE’s operations. The vast majority of the “worst of the worst” alleged tren de aragua gang members that were sent to El Salvador had no criminal record.

Sometimes. Using law enforcement for traffic control on a publicly funded construction project would be indirectly funded by tax payers, but I’m curious how you think the traffic police directing cars into and out of parking garages by the stadiums for concerts and sports would be taxpayer funded? Their wages would come from the ticket sales, wouldn’t they?

>According to city council staff, SPD recovers nearly 100% of costs spent on many sporting events, as the department has contracts with several teams to pay for manned posts at street closures, traffic control and other SPD operations during their games.

This is in class G airspace—uncontrolled. This isn’t in airport flight paths for either of the big airports or lake union float planes(which is uncontrolled and wouldn’t apply anyways)

And it can be legal for registered sub 0.55 lb drones with prop-guards and remote identification modules to fly over crowds—but to my knowledge no commercially available drones comply with these requirements but although it would be possible to build or modify a drone to comply.

Regardless, it’s illegal to fly drones in Seattle parks without a permit which likely wasn’t obtained. Theoretically it could be legally flown from private property outside Seattle center if visual line of sight was maintained.

This is in class G airspace—uncontrolled. This isn’t in airport flight paths for either of the big airports or lake union float planes(which is uncontrolled and wouldn’t apply anyways)

And it can be legal for registered sub 0.55 lb drones with prop-guards and remote identification modules to fly over crowds—but to my knowledge no commercially available drones comply with these requirements but although it would be possible to build or modify a drone to comply.

Regardless, it’s illegal to fly drones in Seattle parks without a permit which likely wasn’t obtained. Theoretically it could be legally flown from private property outside Seattle center if visual line of sight was maintained.

It’s tricky. Drones theoretically can legally fly over people if they have all of the following: weigh less than 250 g/0.55 lb, have a prop guard, are broadcasting remote identification, registered with FAA.
To my knowledge, no commercially available drone satisfies these requirements. Several could be relatively easily modified to meet these requirements as long as the modifications didn’t put them over weight.

To fly here, it would have to have been launched and controlled within visual line of sight from private land as it’s illegal in Seattle to launch without a permit on public land. A drone would also need to be registered with Washington state.

The airspace over Seattle center is class G, so that wouldn’t be a concern, and there were no events happening at climate pledge or memorial stadium within an hour before or after the protest, so the standard FAA stadium no fly zone doesn’t apply.

In theory, if someone launched from a higher vantage point like a private balcony or roof, and was careful to fly over buildings and not over any moving vehicles, crowds, or people when crossing paths or roads, it Is possible to get footage similar to this while complying with drone laws. But it is a nightmare at times to be aware of and comply with all legal requirements.

Do you deny that water rights should be codified? Otherwise some new development could cause farmer’s wells to run dry like has happened to a couple of my friends in ferndale area.

The groundwater is being over utilized as is the nooksack.

Not necessarily depending on which proposal is being discussed.

There’s always been access to the pier… you just had to be agile.

It’s not just Washington. It’s the whole country. The last person I knew that had it happen was in Montana and the person before that was in Tennessee.

As I remember there’s always been a fence, but it had either gates or openings at two of the corners?

It’s incredibly relevant and you refuse to answer.

I ask again… where in Gaza is safe? You’re having a discussion in bad faith.

This is just whataboutism. Fuck hamas. They’re terrorists. But the IDF is no better. What use is allowing emergency medical staff into a region when Israel would just kill them and bury their ambulances and bodies in a mass grave with bulldozers?

They aren’t refusing to protect anyone. Israel is willing to kill everyone—nowhere is safe.