April 17 2025, 2:05 p.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Demonstrators during a \u201cDay Without Immigrants\u201d protest in Detroit on March 4, 2025. Photo: Nicolo Filippo Rosso\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE DEPARTMENT OF<\/strong> Homeland Security said this week in a Michigan court that the agency does not have the authority to terminate students\u2019 immigration statuses by terminating their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System. Known as SEVIS, the database allows both universities and authorities to track information about international students on visas in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Homeland Security\u2019s changes to SEVIS, the Trump administration said, have no bearing on a student\u2019s lawful nonimmigrant status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTerminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual\u2019s nonimmigrant status in the United States,\u201d said Andre Watson, assistant director of the national security division for Homeland Security Investigations, in the filing<\/a>. Watson added that existing laws and regulations \u201cdo not provide\u201d the DHS-run Student Exchange and Visitor Program \u201cthe authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This will be news to many hundreds of students who have had their SEVIS records terminated by DHS in recent weeks \u2014 and were then told by their schools or the government that they have thus lost their immigration status and must immediately leave the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n DOGE Installs a Former Tesla Employee at the FBI<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Shawn Musgrave<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Evidence Linking Kilmar Abrego Garcia to MS-13: A Chicago Bulls Hat and a Hoodie<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jessica Washington<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n No-Bid ICE Contract Went to Former ICE Agents Being Sued for Fabricating Criminal Evidence on the Job<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sam Biddle<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cUnder pressure from ICE, schools have been advising students they are out of status after SEVIS record termination, and in many cases disenrolling them as a result,\u201d said Nathan Yaffe, an attorney representing international students facing deportation in other cases. \u201cNow ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDisenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Based on school officials checking their SEVIS records, hundreds of students have been led to believe that they had lost their student immigration status because a terminated record in the database is broadly taken to mean a student has fallen out of status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The DHS\u2019s latest claims to the contrary in court are sure to only sow further confusion, but they are strong grounds, Yaffe said, for schools to immediately stop disenrolling students believed to be out of status due to SEVIS record checks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAny school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to re-enroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration\u2019s agenda,\u201d Yaffe said. \u201cDisenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DHS declaration was filed in response to a lawsuit brought<\/a> by four Michigan students<\/a>, who are suing the Trump administration over the reported loss of their F-1 student statuses. In response, the government argued that the case should be thrown out, since DHS did not remove the students\u2019 statuses when it terminated their SEVIS records. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Inside Higher Ed<\/a>, 16 lawsuits from at least 50 students have challenged the Trump administration over visa revocations and deportation threats. A number of the suits have challenged DHS\u2019s authority to summarily change students\u2019 statuses on SEVIS. It was only for the first time in the Michigan case, however, that the government said that its SEVIS interventions had no bearing on a student\u2019s status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The admission was an apparent effort by the government to dodge legal challenges. The students are suing to have their legal student immigration status restored, and the government is suggesting that their SEVIS terminations never changed the students\u2019 statuses, so the agency cannot be sued for its actions. Communications from government agencies and school administrations, however, have up until this point taken a SEVIS termination to mean that a student\u2019s status is terminated too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In an email<\/a> sent by a school official at the University of Michigan to one of the Michigan plaintiffs, for example, the student was told, \u201cIn our daily review of SEVIS, we learned that your SEVIS record was \u2018terminated\u2019 by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.\u201d The school official continued: \u201cWe do not have any additional information, but this termination means you no longer hold valid F-1 status within the United States. You will need to cease any employment immediately. Since this termination does not carry a grace period, we must recommend you make plans to exit the United States immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government\u2019s defense in court, however, claimed the direct opposite, noting in a filing: \u201cThere are no legal consequences to the termination of a SEVIS record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The University of Michigan and Wayne State University \u2014 the two schools attended by plaintiffs in the Michigan lawsuit \u2014 did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment, nor did DHS, ICE, and the Department of Justice, which represents the administration in court.Read Our Complete CoverageThe War on Immigrants<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A student plaintiff in another, similar case filed in California received an email directly from the State Department, informing them that their student visa had been revoked. The email fails to distinguish in any meaningful way between visa status and legal immigration status, which are not the same thing. In one paragraph, the State Department tells the student that their visa has been \u201crevoked under Section 221(i) of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The email later notes, \u201cRemaining in the United States without a lawful immigration status can result in fines, detention, and\/or deportation\u201d \u2014 without informing the student that they may very well still have lawful immigration status. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGiven the gravity of this situation, individuals whose visa was revoked may wish to demonstrate their intent to depart the United States using the CBP Home App,\u201d the State Department email told the student.\u00a0(The State Department declined to comment, citing pending legislation.)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ranjani Srinivasan, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University fled to Canada in March after being targeted by ICE<\/a>. After DHS terminated her SEVIS status, Srinivasan wrote in a statement<\/a> that Columbia \u201carbitrarily de-enrolled\u201d her, ending her \u201clegal status, worker status, and housing.\u201d She blamed \u201cICE threats and Columbia complicity\u201d for her decision to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Homeland Security website, which offers official guidance on international student rules and regulations, suggests that a terminated record indicates that the student\u2019s legal status has been terminated too. The site notes that a terminated record in SEVIS means that a student \u201closes all on- and\/or off-campus employment authorization,\u201d \u201ccannot re-enter the United States on the terminated SEVIS record,\u201d and that ICE agents may investigate to \u201cconfirm the departure of the student.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n DHS also says that a terminated record \u201ccould indicate that the nonimmigrant no longer maintains\u201d their legal status, but that it is \u201cdesignated school officials,\u201d rather than ICE and other DHS agents who \u201cmostly terminate\u201d these records.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The State Department has been removing student visas en masse. Over 1,200 student visas have been revoked, almost entirely from nonwhite students<\/a>, since President Donald Trump announced plans to target international students, particularly those who have expressed support <\/a>for Palestinian freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The removal of a student visa, however, is not the same as, and does not entail, the removal of legal nonimmigrant status in the U.S. as a student. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A visa is required for an international student to legally enter the country to study here. After entering, however, the visa does not affect the student\u2019s immigration status. A student with an expired or revoked visa can remain in legal nonimmigrant student status while not leaving the country; a university has no legal reason to disenroll that student or prevent their continued study in the U.S..<\/p>\n\n\n\n The DHS declaration in Michigan went further in making the distinction between having a visa revoked and being eligible for deportation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPrudential visa revocation, absent other factors, does not make an individual amendable to removal,\u201d wrote Watson, the HSI official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is, the revocation of a student visa is not, in and of itself, necessarily grounds for a student to be deported. Yet schools have been reacting to SEVIS terminations, not visa revocations, when they have disenrolled students or advised students to immediately leave the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This does not mean that the students currently targeted by Trump\u2019s administration are safe. A student in legal immigration status with a revoked visa is at significant risk should ICE seek to pursue deportation proceedings against them. The agency would have to send the student a notice to appear before an immigration judge, and there would be a hearing about the student\u2019s deportability, at which the student could challenge their visa revocation.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The process can be frightening for students, as the cases of detained legal permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> and Mohsen Mahdawi<\/a> and visa holders like R\u00fcmeysa \u00d6zt\u00fcrk<\/a> make clear. The Trump administration has shown little compunction about taking the next step toward making individual students deportable, attempting to carry out the mass removal of students for minor legal violations, as well as for entirely legal political speech<\/a> under spurious \u201cforeign policy<\/a>\u201d grounds and bunk charges<\/a> of antisemitism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In trying to stave off litigation, DHS has been clear in other cases that students who have had their visas revoked and SEVIS records terminated have not fallen out of legal status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe issue Plaintiffs seek to avoid is the real issue before this court: the State Department revoked Plaintiffs\u2019 visa,\u201d the government argued in another case filed by students in Georgia, \u201cbut those actions are un reviewable here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo you realize that this is Kafkaesque?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n The government is claiming that the students have directed their legal challenge at the wrong government agency, but that they also cannot sue the State Department, because the section<\/a> of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is deploying<\/a> <\/a>to summarily remove visas<\/a> \u201cexpressly precludes visa revocations from judicial review.\u201d According to the Trump administration the students could only challenge Rubio\u2019s wide and reckless discretion to revoke their visas \u201cin removal proceedings if the revocation is the sole basis for removal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Federal judges hearing students\u2019 cases around the country have so far not been impressed with the government\u2019s arguments. At least five federal courts have issued<\/a> temporary restraining orders on deportation orders linked to SEVIS terminations. On Wednesday, District Court Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., specifically ordered<\/a> DHS\u2019s Watson to testify in court over the claims in his declaration, which was also submitted by the government in the case filed by students there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS,\u201d Reyes told the government. \u201cAnd now, his two very experienced lawyers can\u2019t even tell him whether or not he\u2019s here legally, because the Court can\u2019t tell him whether or not he\u2019s here legally, because the government\u2019s counsel can\u2019t tell him if he\u2019s here legally.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The judge said, \u201cDo you realize that this is Kafkaesque?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Update: April 17, 2025, 4:27 p.m. ET Natasha Lennard<\/a>@natashalennard<\/a>on X<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additional Reporting: Jessica Washington<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In their haste to comply with apparent directives from Trump, universities became unwitting handmaidens of the deportation machine. Natasha Lennard April 17 2025, 2:05 p.m. (TheIntercept.com) Demonstrators during a \u201cDay Without Immigrants\u201d protest in Detroit on March 4, 2025. Photo: Nicolo Filippo Rosso\/Bloomberg via Getty Images THE DEPARTMENT OF Homeland Security said… Continue reading ![\"Demonstrators](\"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2209078705-e1744911384717.jpg?fit=6000%2C3000\")
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<\/strong>This story has been updated to note that, after publication, the State Department declined to comment.<\/em>Share<\/p>\n\n\n\nCONTACT THE AUTHOR:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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