(WORLD NEWS) REVOKED VISAS: OVER 130 US STUDENTA JIN FEDERAL LAWSUIT
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Agency Report
According to court filings, over 130 foreign students from all over the United States have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the Trump administration illegally revoked their visas, endangering their legal position in the nation.
The students claim that their status in the government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database was abruptly and unlawfully revoked by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement department, putting them at risk of being arrested, detained, and deported.
On April 11, 17 students in the state of Georgia filed the first lawsuit.
Since then, 116 more have joined them as US President Donald Trump’s government continues its extensive immigration crackdown, which has targeted international students among many others.
Across campuses in the United States, international students have been scrambling as they have discovered their visas have been revoked, often for little or no reason, according to court documents and media reports.
The Georgia lawsuit names US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants and seeks to reinstate the revoked visas.
In the complaint, which does not identify the students by name “due to fear of retaliation,” the summaries offered for each of the 17 original cases reveal seemingly arbitrary cancelations, with each plaintiff giving their best guess as to what may have prompted them to be targeted.
Some pointed to minor traffic infringements, such as John Doe 2, a Chinese citizen pursuing an engineering doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
He was notified by his school that his visa was revoked after a criminal records check, but the violation was not specified. The student believes it may have been related to a traffic offence that was closed and, according to the filing, he has no other criminal history.
Another of the students, an Indian national at New York Institute of Technology, said he had been found not guilty of shoplifting, and the case was dismissed.
“Over the past week, visa revocations and SEVIS terminations have shaken campuses across the country,” the complaint says.
“The SEVIS terminations have taken place against the backdrop of numerous demands being made of universities by the federal government and threats of cutting off billions of dollars in federal funding.”
The suit also noted that students’ removal from the government database could jeopardize the individuals’ ability to reenter the United States in the future.
AFP
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