Editor’s note: This story was updated April 29 with additional information about students’ legal statuses.
The U.S. government is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the country after many filed court challenges against the Trump administration crackdown, federal officials said Friday.
Though it’s unclear how many Indiana students have been affected, an April 28 court filing said that six Purdue students, a Notre Dame student and an Indiana Tech student had their statuses restored in the database. However, lawyers for the students asked the government for additional confirmation that the students’ F-1 visa statuses was also restored.
The decision from the Trump administration comes after judges across the U.S. have been issuing orders temporarily restoring students’ records in dozens of lawsuits challenging the terminations.
More than 1,200 students nationwide suddenly lost their legal status or had visas revoked, leaving them at risk for deportation. Many said they had only minor infractions on their record or did not know why they were targeted. Some left the country while others have gone into hiding or stopped going to class.
At least 13 IU, Purdue students had lost legal status
At least 13 students at IU Indianapolis and Purdue University have had their legal statuses terminated or visas revoked.
As of April 29, at least six Purdue University students had their legal statuses restored, per an April 28 court filing.
Purdue spokesperson Trevor Peters told Mirror Indy April 25 that the university had no updates to share regarding its international students’ legal status.
IU spokesperson Mark Bode did not respond to Mirror Indy’s questions about whether IU Indianapolis students had their statuses restored. At an April 15 faculty council meeting, IU Indianapolis provost Jay Gladden told faculty that seven students at IU Indianapolis had visas revoked.
That includes Jelena Liu, an informatics graduate student from China who is suing the Department of Homeland Security over losing her legal status.
Chris Daley, executive director of the ACLU of Indiana, told Mirror Indy in a statement it’s awaiting additional confirmation from the federal government that the students represented by the ACLU have had their legal statuses restored.
Liu did not respond to Mirror Indy’s questions about whether her status had been restored.
Government says it will restore student status
Word of the policy pivot came Friday from lawyers representing the government in several of the lawsuits.
A lawyer for the plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, Brian Green, provided The Associated Press with a copy of a statement a government lawyer emailed to him on the restoration of legal status for people whose records were recently terminated.
It says: “ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be re-activated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination.”
SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems database that tracks international students’ compliance with their visa status. NCIC is the National Crime Information Center, a database of criminal justice information maintained by the FBI.
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant Homeland Security secretary, said ICE had not reversed course on any visa revocations but did “restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”
Several colleges said Friday they noticed legal status already had been restored for some of their students, but uncertainty remained.
“It is still unclear whether ICE will restore status to everyone it has targeted and whether the State Department will help students whose visas were wrongly revoked,” said Greg Chen of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
This story was updated April 29 with additional information about students’ legal status.
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Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire by email claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org, on most social media @clairerafford or on Signal 317-759-0429.
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