In a surprising turn of events, the Trump administration has decided to reverse the termination of legal status for international students after many filed court challenges around the U.S., a government lawyer said Friday.
According to the Associated Press, Judges around the country had already issued temporary orders restoring the students' records in a federal database of international students maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The records had been suddenly terminated in recent weeks, often without the students or their schools being notified.
“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. 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 lawyer read out an official statement.
Recently, in line with Trump administration's stringent crackdown on foreign students, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records terminated the validity of visas of several international students.
Amid the intensifying crisis over visa revocations in the United States, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) revealed that around 50 percent of international students in the US who have recently had their visas revoked, were from India. AILA's comments were based on 327 reports on these instances from students, attorneys, and university employees.
Moreover, AILA also highlighted that 50 percent of these students were on Optional Practical Training (OPT), which means that they have graduated and are employed in the United States.
Xiangyun Bu and Qiuyi Yang from China, who are currently doing masters and Ph.D. respectively from University of Michigan and Yogesh Joshi from Nepal who is also doing Ph.D. from Wayne State University are also facing deportation issues.
OPT, SEVIS: What Are They?
As per US immigration policy, OPT period allows international students who are in the US on an F1 visa, to work for up to 12 months, followed by an option to extend this by another 24 months in the case of fields that comprise science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
Out of the almost 3.32 lakh Indian students in 2023-24, around 29 per cent or 97,556 students were on OPT.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) is a US government database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security.
A terminated SEVIS record implies that the student no longer maintains “F or M status” (student visas are either F or M visas),which leads to the student's job loss. Moreover, the student is refrained from re-entering the US on the terminated record.
