Then, on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security said it had paused deactivating student files and would restore the SEVIS records for now.
“It hasn’t really hit me yet,” said Brian Green, the Denver-area attorney representing an American University student in a case heard Friday in U.S. District Court in D.C.
Colleges and universities use SEVIS as proof of a student’s legal status to remain in the country. There were about 1.1 million international students in the U.S. during the 2023-2024 school year, according to federal data. The American Immigration Lawyers Association estimates that at least 4,700 international students havehad their SEVIS records terminated since Jan. 20.
The SEVIS database statuses were terminated as President Donald Trump’s administration works to deport noncitizen students who it determines to have participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests, engaged in antisemitism or supported Hamas. Last month, after immigration officers began detaining students who protested Israel’s war in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that federal officials had already revoked many visas and would continue to do so.
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said all visa revocations are still in effect. “We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation. What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked,” she said…..
Why Trump Backed Down on Foreign Student Visas
“It took more than 100 lawsuits and 50 restraining orders from dozens of federal judges. But after 20 days of court losses, the Trump administration capitulated, reversing a decision that threatened the legal status of thousands of foreign students in the United States,” Politico reports.
“The Trump administration’s abrupt move tacitly acknowledged what judges in two dozen states had been saying since early April: Terminating university students’ immigration records from a federal database — a step which appeared to jeopardize their legal authorization to remain in the country — was almost certainly illegal. And it was implemented so ham-handedly that judges felt compelled to intervene.”