Hundreds of international students are being forced to leave the United States after the Trump administration began aggressively revoking student visas.
“Do not attempt to remain in the United States. The federal government will find you,” read an email reportedly from the Department of Homeland Security, shared by immigration lawyer Nicole Micheroni.
With some students reportedly arrested without prior notice, many students say they were not given clear reasons.
Some of the students targeted never were protesters and or charged with a crime, said lawyer Dustin Baxter, who’s suing the government on behalf of more than 100 affected students.
“Not only would they revoke the person’s student visa – even if there was no conviction, if there was just an arrest, and sometimes there wasn’t even an arrest, there was just an encounter and maybe a ticket – they would revoke the student visa,” Baxter said as quoted by CNN.
Some foreign students say the first notice they received about their visa revocation was not from ICE but their school.
Meanwhile, many universities got no formal notice of their students’ visa revocations and found out only by seeing a student’s name in government records, school officials say.
After four students and two recent graduates of Stanford University in California had their student visas rescinded, the “University learned of the revocations during a routine check of the SEVIS database,” it said in a statement on April 4.
That marks a major change from the way that system historically has been used, an immigration attorney told CNN.
“Up until Trump took office, it was really up to the designated school officers to initiate that revocation in SEVIS,” said Jeff Joseph, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “What we’re seeing now is that ICE is doing it themselves.”
In one widely circulated case, Tufts University doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk was handcuffed by agents days after her visa was revoked without notice.
She “shrieked in fear and confusion,” according to surveillance footage cited in court.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed visa cancellations under a clause that targets individuals whose presence poses “serious foreign policy consequences.”
The State Department has stated it has “broad authority” to revoke visas at any time and warned that monitoring continues even after issuance.
“We continuously check visa holders… and we will revoke their visas and deport them if they don’t [follow the rules].”
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