On Friday, the Trump administration announced a temporary restoration of legal status for hundreds of foreign students in the United States, amid an ongoing court case addressing the potential termination of their status in the future. This decision came during a federal court hearing in Boston, where Judge F. Dennis Saylor is overseeing a lawsuit filed by international students who argue that their legal status was unjustly revoked under the administration’s stringent immigration policies.
The students contend that their status was canceled after their information was removed from SEVIS (the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System), a U.S. government database that monitors the academic and legal compliance of over 1.1 million foreign students. When a student’s SEVIS record is deleted, they are rendered vulnerable to deportation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association reports that more than 4,700 students have had their SEVIS records erased since President Trump took office.
While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asserts that students lose their status if they engage in criminal activity, many of the students involved in the lawsuit claim their records were unfairly erased. Some had their records deleted for charges that were later dismissed or for minor infractions that did not warrant such extreme action.
One of the plaintiffs, Carrie Zheng, a student at Boston University, secured a temporary restraining order halting her deportation. Judge Saylor ruled to temporarily reinstate her SEVIS record and those of over 200 other affected students while the case proceeds. ICE clarified that, although students’ SEVIS records will remain intact for the time being, it is developing a policy framework that will govern the future termination of these records, potentially leading to deportation in certain circumstances.
As the case continues, the temporary protections for these students remain in effect, with further policy decisions pending.
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