Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not mince words when pressed about the Tufts University visa controversy on Monday. He didn’t parse it. He didn’t hedge it. He shut it down.
Standing alongside Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in Budapest on February 16, 2026, Rubio was asked about an immigration judge terminating removal proceedings against Tufts doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk.
Instead of getting pulled into procedural back-and-forth, Rubio reframed the entire issue.
I’ve said this repeatedly. I don’t know why it’s so hard for some to comprehend it, so let me repeat it again. A visa. No one is entitled to a visa. There is no constitutional right to a visa. A visa is a permission to enter our country as a visitor. If you enter our country as a visitor and as a visitor in our country, be it a student, a tourist, a journalist, whatever you want to be, and you undertake activities that are against the national interest, the national security of the United States, we will take away your visa. In fact, if we knew you were going to do it, we probably wouldn’t have given you your visa.
That exchange followed a concrete legal development in the Tufts case.
An immigration judge terminated removal proceedings against Öztürk after concluding the government had not met its burden in immigration court.
An immigration judge terminated removal proceedings against Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was detained for over a month last year as part of the Trump administration’s effort to target and deport international students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy, her lawyers said Monday.
The ruling addressed whether the government had met its burden in immigration court. It did not grant citizenship. It did not create permanent status. It did not transform a student visa into a constitutional guarantee.
The case drew national attention after Öztürk, a Turkish national, was detained following her inclusion in an opinion piece in a student newspaper.
The student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who is from Turkey, was detained by immigration agents last year after she co-wrote a pro-Palestinian opinion article for her student newspaper.
She was later released after weeks in custody.
Rumeysa Ozturk was held in detention in Louisiana for 45 days until a federal judge released her on bail.
Here’s the part critics keep trying to blur.
Immigration judges oversee removal proceedings. The State Department controls visa issuance and revocation. Those are separate authorities. A courtroom pause in deportation does not create an entitlement to remain in the United States.
That is the line Rubio drew.
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If immigration court procedure could effectively override executive visa authority, the State Department’s statutory power would be reduced to suggestion. Rubio made clear that it is not happening.
He was asked about Tufts. He answered the larger question instead.
A visa is permission. Not entitlement.
And if that principle stands, this case and others like it will ultimately turn on who controls the terms of entry into the country.
Rubio’s answer left no daylight.
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