BREAKING: Trump Administration Changes Tune, Restores SEVIS Records for International Students, but Warns of Future Enforcement Actions

Following a wave of lawsuits from international students whose visas and Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records were terminated without prior notice, the Trump administration has suddenly changed its course.

In recent weeks, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun reinstating SEVIS records that were previously terminated, after seemingly recognizing that the government did not go through the appropriate channels to do so.

Over the past month, it is estimated that the State Department and ICE collectively cancelled over 300 F-1 student visas and terminated more than 4,736 SEVIS records primarily due to student encounters with law enforcement, criminal charges that were dismissed, and old misdemeanors pre-dating visa issuance. These SEVIS terminations automatically exposed students to unlawful presence in the United States, and the risk of deportation.

It was further discovered that ICE utilized AI assisted programs to screen the social media posts of F-1 international students and terminated their legal status based on antisemitic activity or alleged support for terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

In response, students across the country sued the government to preserve their status, leading federal judges to issue a series of emergency orders to stop the government from cancelling visas and SEVIS records.

On Friday, April 25^th in response to these legal challenges, in a court hearing in Washington D.C., the Trump administration revealed that it had restored the SEVIS records of thousands of international students, but insisted it was only doing so as a temporary reprieve and would not be reinstating visas that were previously revoked.

According to a Justice Department lawyer:

“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for [named] plaintiff(s) in [lawsuits] (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 National Crime Information Center (NCIC) finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination.

ICE maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons, such as if the plaintiff fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

DHS Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin further clarified that reinstatements will only be made for prior SEVIS terminations, not visa revocations:

“We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation. What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”

Notably, many international students affected by these terminations voluntarily left the country fearing the prospect of deportation. Others have lost job offers and some have faced prolonged detention.

While the government has tried to dismiss many of the legal challenges against it arguing that the SEVIS reinstatements has made them unnecessary, many continue to appear on court dockets across the country.

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