The Trump administration said on Friday that it is restoring the student visa registrations of potentially thousands of foreign students in the United States whose legal status had recently been abruptly terminated.
The decision was announced during a court hearing before a federal judge in Boston who was hearing a challenge by one of the many international students nationally suing over the administration’s actions.
Those students’ status had been revoked as a result of their records being terminated from a database of the approximately 1.1 million foreign student visa holders, putting them at risk of deportation.
Since Trump took office on January 20, records for more than 4,700 students have been removed from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)-maintained database known as Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (Sevis), according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
The database monitors compliance with visa terms and records foreign students’ addresses, progress toward graduation and other information. To remain in the database, student visa holders have to obey conditions like limits on employment and avoiding illegal activity.
Shortly before Friday’s hearing in Boston University student Carrie Zheng’s case, US District Judge F Dennis Saylor said he had received an email from a lawyer from the government alerting him to a change in position by ICE.
According to that email, ICE was now “developing a policy that will provide a framework for Sevis record terminations.” Until that policy is issued, the Sevis records for Zheng and similarly situated plaintiffs will remain active or will be
restored, the email said.
accusing universities including Columbia and Harvard of allowing anti-Semitism on their campuses.
In response, more than 130 international students across the United States have joined a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully cancelling their visas, jeopardising their legal status in the country.
But others have been deterred from setting foot in America in the first place.
German Tariq Kandil turned down an opportunity to spend six months on exchange at the University of California, Davis, fearing he would be targeted by the US government for his social media posts criticising Trump and speaking about Palestine.
“I didn’t want to have to censor myself just to be able to enter the country,” the 21-year-old told AFP. “The United States is supposed to be the country of free speech.”
Kandil said he was “afraid of being arrested when entering or leaving the country and finding myself in detention awaiting deportation”. He was also worried his name would attract undue scrutiny.
“Tariq Kandil isn’t a typical name when you come from Europe.”
report published by the State Department’s educational bureau and the Institute of International Education.
Now, Trump is aggressively targeting top universities where students protested over Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, cutting off federal funds and directing immigration officers to deport student demonstrators, including those with green cards.
Rania Kettani, a Moroccan student currently living in Abu Dhabi, joined protests against Israel’s conduct in the Gaza conflict while studying at New York University in 2023.
“It is inconceivable to me that, in today’s context, doing the exact same thing could lead to deportation and cut short my studies,” Kettani told AFP. The 22-year-old had planned to apply for a master’s degree at an American university.
“Seeing the number of students whose visas were revoked, I gave up,” she said.
“I don’t want to live and study in fear.”
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