After weeks of confusion, the Trump administration was compelled to confirm in court on April 29 that it terminated immigration records for thousands of international students because of past encounters with law enforcement, many of them minor. “It’s quite clear that what ICE did here broke the law,” Kuck said. “They didn’t follow the regulations [or policy] they themselves have published.” On April 25, after judges had already ruled against the administration in dozens of cases, the Justice Department said ICE would reverse course and restore or planned to restore the SEVIS records, at least for now.
“They have done irreparable damages already,” said the man, who has joined a lawsuit with other international students. “Like some people left the country. Some people left their studies. And in my case, I lost my job.”
The Department of Justice argued in court that terminating a student’s SEVIS record alone did not take away their legal status in the U.S., although that appeared to contradict the public guidance on DHS’ “Study in the States” website.
Judge Ana Reyes pushed ICE to explain what the termination of SEVIS records means and why it occurred. And she summoned Watson, the ICE official, to court last week to describe how this effort known informally inside the agency as the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative” worked.
The termination of SEVIS records was intended as a “red flag,” Watson said, so that schools and universities could then “determine if the student is still in compliance” with the terms of their visa.
But Reyes noted that ICE could have achieved that goal by simply communicating with the universities. And she seemed troubled by what she described as “zero due process” for students whose records were terminated.”
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