A U.S. court ruled that the Donald Trump administration arbitrarily deleted information related to foreign students' residency qualifications and issued an order preventing the revocation of visas.
On the 22nd (local time), according to The Washington Post (WP), the Northern District Court of California issued a nationwide injunction preventing the U.S. federal government from revoking the status of foreign students until the main lawsuit is concluded.
The court ruled that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) likely acted beyond its authority when it deleted records of over 20 plaintiffs registered in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS).
SEVIS is a system managed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, issued to foreign students and implemented after the September 11 attacks in 2001. Under current law, foreign students lose their residency qualifications if they provide false information to the Department of Homeland Security or are convicted of a violent crime with a prison sentence of one year or more.
However, after the Trump administration took office, controversy arose when ICE unilaterally deleted the SEVIS records of thousands of foreign students without involving their universities. If SEVIS records are deleted, foreign student visas may be canceled, and individuals may face arrest or deportation.
In response, legal actions against SEVIS deletions have been ongoing across the United States, and it has been reported that at least 200 foreign students have recently obtained temporary restraining orders from courts to halt the visa revocations.
This court order was issued because ICE's actions were deemed generally unlawful, leading to the federal government being prohibited from arbitrarily revoking or detaining the residency qualifications of foreign students while the case is ongoing.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has identified that at least 4,700 foreign student SEVIS records have been deleted since President Trump took office. While some of these had minor criminal records, it is noted that a significant number were acquitted or had reasons for deletion that were not verified.