{"id":3372,"date":"2025-04-17T23:23:42","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T23:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3372"},"modified":"2025-04-17T23:23:42","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T23:23:42","slug":"universities-told-students-to-leave-ice-says-now-they-didnt-have-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gunowner-news.com\/?p=3372","title":{"rendered":"Universities Told Students to Leave, ICE Says Now They Didn’t Have To"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Department of<\/span> Homeland Security said this week in a Michigan court that the agency does not have the authority to terminate students\u2019 immigration statuses by terminating their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System. Known as SEVIS, the database allows both universities and authorities to track information about international students on visas in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security\u2019s changes to SEVIS, the Trump administration said, have no bearing on a student\u2019s lawful nonimmigrant status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTerminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual\u2019s nonimmigrant status in the United States,\u201d said Andre Watson, assistant director of the national security division for Homeland Security Investigations, in the filing<\/a>. Watson added that existing laws and regulations \u201cdo not provide\u201d the DHS-run Student Exchange and Visitor Program \u201cthe authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record.\u201d<\/p>\n

This will be news to many hundreds of students who have had their SEVIS records terminated by DHS in recent weeks \u2014 and were then told by their schools or the government that they have thus lost their immigration status and must immediately leave the country.<\/p>\n

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\u201cUnder pressure from ICE, schools have been advising students they are out of status after SEVIS record termination, and in many cases disenrolling them as a result,\u201d said Nathan Yaffe, an attorney representing international students facing deportation in other cases. \u201cNow ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cDisenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Based on school officials checking their SEVIS records, hundreds of students have been led to believe that they had lost their student immigration status because a terminated record in the database is broadly taken to mean a student has fallen out of status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DHS\u2019s latest claims to the contrary in court are sure to only sow further confusion, but they are strong grounds, Yaffe said, for schools to immediately stop disenrolling students believed to be out of status due to SEVIS record checks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to re-enroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration\u2019s agenda,\u201d Yaffe said. \u201cDisenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Schools Told Students<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The DHS declaration was filed in response to a lawsuit brought<\/a> by four Michigan students<\/a>, who are suing the Trump administration over the reported loss of their F-1 student statuses. In response, the government argued that the case should be thrown out, since DHS did not remove the students\u2019 statuses when it terminated their SEVIS records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Inside Higher Ed<\/a>, 16 lawsuits from at least 50 students have challenged the Trump administration over visa revocations and deportation threats. A number of the suits have challenged DHS\u2019s authority to summarily change students\u2019 statuses on SEVIS. It was only for the first time in the Michigan case, however, that the government said that its SEVIS interventions had no bearing on a student\u2019s status.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The admission was an apparent effort by the government to dodge legal challenges. The students are suing to have their legal student immigration status restored, and the government is suggesting that their SEVIS terminations never changed the students\u2019 statuses, so the agency cannot be sued for its actions. Communications from government agencies and school administrations, however, have up until this point taken a SEVIS termination to mean that a student\u2019s status is terminated too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an email<\/a> sent by a school official at the University of Michigan to one of the Michigan plaintiffs, for example, the student was told, \u201cIn our daily review of SEVIS, we learned that your SEVIS record was \u2018terminated\u2019 by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.\u201d The school official continued: \u201cWe do not have any additional information, but this termination means you no longer hold valid F-1 status within the United States. You will need to cease any employment immediately. Since this termination does not carry a grace period, we must recommend you make plans to exit the United States immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s defense in court, however, claimed the direct opposite, noting in a filing: \u201cThere are no legal consequences to the termination of a SEVIS record.\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Michigan and Wayne State University \u2014 the two schools attended by plaintiffs in the Michigan lawsuit \u2014 did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s request for comment, nor did DHS, ICE, and the Department of Justice, which represents the administration in court.<\/p>\n

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