Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
A federal judge has issued a nationwide order that bars the Trump administration from revoking the legal status of foreign students to study and work in the United States.
The Thursday ruling from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White in Oakland, California, prohibits the administration from canceling the legal status of international students without doing an individualized review and following the criteria laid out in federal regulations.
The Trump administration earlier this year terminated the records of thousands of foreign nationals in what’s known as the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems database. The move came as the administration claimed it was taking steps to crack down on foreign students with criminal records.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that White’s order “delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers.”
The administration “is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system, and we expect a higher court to vindicate us in this,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
Separately on Thursday, the Trump administration notified Harvard University that it was revoking the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, which means it could no longer enroll international students.
White’s order applies to individual students and not institutions. Harvard, which has more than 7,000 visa holders, filed a lawsuit on Friday challenging the move and a federal judge quickly blocked the government’s move.
Canceling records in the SEVIS database effectively means the students no longer have legal status in the country, placing them at risk of arrest, detention and even deportation.
Last month, U.S. officials reinstated the canceled status of thousands of students in the face of several legal challenges. White wrote that he was concerned officials were trying to avoid judicial scrutiny by “abruptly” changing positions to resolve individual cases in courts across the country.
“It is unclear how this game of whack-a-mole will end unless defendants are enjoined from skirting their own mandatory regulations,” White wrote.
Challengers in the student SEVIS cases argued that the mass terminations were unlawful and that in at least some instances the administration had swept up students who didn’t meet the standards for having their status revoked.
White wrote that the students who sued in his court were likely to succeed in arguing their status revocations were “arbitrary and capricious.” His order also blocks the administration from arresting or detaining students based on the SEVIS cancellations or “imposing any adverse legal effect” while the litigation moves forward.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.