Trump administration backtracks on cancelling thousands of foreign student visas

President Donald Trump's administration announced on Friday that it was reversing a decision to cancel thousands of foreign student visas in US federal court.

Middle East Eye reported last week that at least 1,500 student visas had been revoked and universities were not notified of a student's change in status or told why their students' visas were being rescinded.

According to a report by WUSA9, US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had terminated the visas of 4,700 students in total.

The Trump administration's abrupt reversal follows weeks of scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges against the move. 

Critics called the termination of students' records from a federal database, called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), illegal.

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The Trump administration used a rarely invoked immigration act that allows the secretary of state to revoke immigration status if the secretary deems their presence a threat to US foreign policy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington would take away any visa that had previously been issued if students participated in social activism.

"We gave you a visa to come and study and get a degree, not to become a social activist that tears up our university campus. We've given you a visa and you decide to do that - we're going to take it away," he said during a press conference in Guyana.

 "At some point, I hope we run out because we've gotten rid of all of them, but we're looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up," he said. 

As reported by MEE last week, the vast majority of those who had their visas terminated did not know the reasons why. 

Students at more than 240 American universities have been impacted by a change to their resident legal status, which means they can no longer complete their studies in person and will have to return home, according to a tracker created by Inside Higher Ed.

The terminations caused panic for thousands of students. Those concerns were magnified after high profile cases like that of Rumeysa Ozturk, whose visa was cancelled before she was detained by masked US immigration agents in March. 

More than 100 lawsuits were filed by students against the federal government following the Trump administration's move.

Politico reported that many of those who sued said their schools had blocked their ability to continue taking classes or conducting research, sometimes just weeks before graduation.

In one case, the University of Connecticut shared with MEE that the visas of 12 students, six undergraduate students and six graduate students, as well as one alumnus in a postgraduate professional programme at the university, had been terminated.

Meanwhile, Rutgers University in New Jersey told MEE that "about a dozen" students had been impacted.

Several US judges said the Trump administration had acted in an arbitrary manner. Many also criticised the lack of clarification from federal government lawyers on whether the students could stay in school or had to leave the country immediately.

Terminating a record in the SEVIS system doesn't necessarily mean the individual's immigrant status in the country has been terminated.

Judges in more than 50 of the cases, across 23 states, ordered the administration to temporarily undo the actions. Dozens more judges seemed set to follow suit before Friday's reversal.

All of the revocations share a common thread - none of the students have been charged with a crime.

middleeasteye.net