Trump Administration Backs Down On Student Visa Terminations, Restores Them

Facing mounting courtroom losses over student visa revocations, the Justice Department announced that it was backing down and would manually restore many student visas while it developed new policy guidelines for their removal.

The surprise reversal came after thousands of foreign students had their immigration records abruptly terminated in the federal system that keeps track of them, which is maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The terminations meant that the students were suddenly vulnerable to deportation, with some unable to figure out what they had done wrong. Some of the students appeared to be flagged for participation in pro-Palestine demonstrations while others had minor legal infractions on their records, many of which had been thrown out.

The about-face marks an unexpected defeat in President Donald Trump’s war on immigration.

During a Friday morning hearing in federal court, a federal prosecutor read a statement from ICE noting it was “developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations,” referencing the system that tracks students’ immigration status, called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.

“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,” the statement continued, according to WUSA9, a Washington CBS affiliate.

The same statement was read in court in Oakland, California, in a related case, The Associated Press reported.

More than 1,200 international students have had their immigration statuses upended since late March, according to an AP count.

Politico, however, reported that the amount of student visas to be restored numbers in the thousands.