THE Trump administration has begun to restore visas for hundreds of foreign students whose legal status had been suddenly revoked.
Government officials confirmed the development on Friday, noting that the decision comes after more than 100 lawsuits were filed by students who had lost their legal right to study at U.S. universities.
The ICIR reported that the United States revoked the visas of hundreds of international students and carried out arrests over alleged support for Hamas.
The Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that about 300 students were targeted as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown titled, “Catch and Revoke.”
According to Rubio, the programme utilises artificial intelligence to monitor and flag individuals engaged in activism perceived as supporting extremist groups.
The visa terminations triggered panic on US campuses, prompting some students to leave the country preemptively to avoid possible detention or deportation.
“Losing their SEVIS records left students vulnerable to immigration actions — and possible detention and deportation,” said Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School.
However, the Justice Department announced on Friday, April 25, that student records would be reinstated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which tracks foreign students’ visa compliance.
A BBC report on Friday revealed that Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Kurlan told a federal court in California that immigration officials are creating a new system for reviewing and terminating visas for international students.
Kurlan emphasised that Immigration and Customs Enforcement still holds the authority to terminate SEVIS records for other reasons.
“If a student 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,” Kurlan told the court.
According to Inside Higher Education, the policy change follows the impact on an estimated 1,800 students and 280 universities.
Meanwhile, attorneys representing students across the country reported that their clients’ SEVIS records have been restored in recent days.
Despite these reinstatements, legal advocates maintain that the revocations violated students’ rights and disrupted their educational pursuits.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues.