After lawsuits from students and rallies led by angry professors, the Trump administration suddenly reversed its decision to cancel more than 1,500 visas held by international students.
The Department of Justice announced this afternoon that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will restore the immigration records of students whose visas had been revoked.
According to Politico, more than 100 lawsuits, in at least 23 states, have been filed in the wake of the initial moves by the Trump administration to cancel student visas. In more than 50 of these lawsuits, judges had ordered the temporary reinstatement of the student visas.
Judges had ruled that removing students from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database is illegal.
SEVIS stores all visa records in an online database. These records allow universities and the federal government to track the number of international students. All students visiting the U.S. on F-1 visa (the visas for full-time students) have a SEVIS number and record.
Judges also expressed frustration about the lack of clarity regarding whether students needed to leave immediately or whether they could finish taking classes. Some students have reportedly left the U.S. voluntarily out of fear that they might be forcefully deported.
A Justice Department attorney read out a written statement in court, saying that ICE is now working on a new policy for students in the U.S. on F-1 visas. .
“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations,” said the attorney. “Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain active or shall be reactivated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination.”
The National Crime Information Center, known as the NCIC, is an online database compiled by the FBI. Law enforcement and other criminal justice agencies use this database to quickly access records such as missing persons, wanted persons and other criminal history.
The DOJ attorney added, “ICE maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons such as if the plaintiff fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
Starting in March, the Trump administration worked to cancel visas and deport students who protested against Israel. Recently, however, hundreds of other students were informed that their visas had been canceled.
Some of these students reportedly had minor infractions, such as traffic violations, but many did not. It’s unclear why their visas were terminated.
This policy reversal is one of many issues that the federal government has backed down on since President Trump took office. Others include not shutting down free COVID-19 testing and not freezing some federal grants.