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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowEven with the reinstatement of legal status for thousands of international students across the United States, legal organizations and immigration attorneys are still keeping a close eye on the federal government’s plans for future visa terminations.
It’s been a little more than a month since the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed a lawsuit against the heads of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, alleging the federal agencies unlawfully terminated the legal status of seven international students enrolled at Indiana universities.
The legal status for those students has been restored but litigation on their behalf remains active because of uncertainty about what the government might do next.
“The government has shown itself to be unreliable when it comes to the status of our plaintiffs,” said Chris Daley, the Indiana ACLU’s executive director.
Daley said his organization has refiled a complaint in Indiana’s Northern District, Lafayette Division, for six of the seven international students in its original lawsuit, as well as two additional students. The plaintiffs in that lawsuit attend Purdue University, the University of Notre Dame and Indiana Tech.
An additional student who attends Indiana University Indianapolis and was named as plaintiff in the initial ACLU complaint also has a lawsuit pending in Indiana’s Southern District.
How the dispute started
When the ACLU announced its initial lawsuit on April 15, it issued a release stating that the plaintiffs were studying in the U.S. on F-1 visas.
The lawsuit alleged that DHS “unilaterally terminated the F-1 student status of numerous students throughout the United States, including the plaintiffs, stripping them of their ability to remain in the United States as students. No process was provided to challenge the terminations.”
“There is no rhyme or reason for DHS’s action. To terminate an international student’s status, the U.S. government must adhere to regulatory standards and provide basic due process, which it has failed to do,” ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Ken Falk said at the time. “The impact on these students’ lives is profound, and now they live in fear of being deported at any moment. We’re calling on the court to take immediate steps to stop these unlawful actions.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons were named as defendants in the suit. Neither agency responded to The Indiana Lawyer’s request for comment.
The lawsuit further stated that the F-1 visa controlled the students’ entry into the U.S., not their continued lawful presence once admitted, and that the plaintiffs were in full compliance with the terms of their F-1 status and had not engaged in any conduct to justify termination.
The Associated Press reported that, on April 30, after mounting court challenges, federal officials said the government was restoring international students’ legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations.
The policy used to initially revoke students’ status seemed haphazard, some immigration attorneys said.
Joseph Fuschetto, an immigration attorney with Bloomington-based Bunger & Robertson, told The Lawyer a lot of the students who came to him had their status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, cancelled by the government without the students or their schools being notified.
He said it seemed that their visas often were revoked due to criminal record checks that found alleged violations. But he stressed that a closer look at those students’ situations found that many of them were found not guilty of whatever crime they were charged with or they went through a diversion program.
A Washington attorney representing an international student provided The Associated Press with a copy of the statement that a government lawyer emailed to him regarding the government’s policy going forward.
It said: “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 Washington attorney said that the government lawyer said it would apply to all students in the same situation, not just those who had filed lawsuits.
How many international students?
When asked how many students with F-1 student visas were enrolled at Purdue University and how that compared to the previous school year, Erin Murphy, the university’s chief spokesperson, directed The Indiana Lawyer to the university’s online data digest.
That digest showed India, China and the Republic of Korea as the countries that produced the most international students at Purdue.
A 2024 Open Doors Report, issued by the Institute of International Education, ranked Purdue No. 9 among 4,500-plus public and private universities for attracting international students.
Based on fall semester enrollment and optional training data for the 2023-24 academic year, the report showed Purdue had a total of 12,181 students enrolled from abroad, representing 130 countries and marking a 6.2% increase over the previous year.
The Indiana Lawyer also asked if the university was concerned that changes to SEVIS or visa status that occurred during this spring, even with the restoration for any impacted students, would negatively impact the future enrollment or retention of international students.
Murphy referred to a previous statement released by the university in April which read, “As is the case with universities across the country, Purdue has been in contact with any individual who has been impacted by a change in their visa status. Impacted individuals are encouraged to contact the embassy of their home country and to seek outside legal assistance. Purdue continues to provide support to those impacted, consistent with our responsibilities as a host institution.”
Indiana University spokesman Mark Bode did not respond to The Lawyer’s email and phone requests for comment about international enrollment at IU or whether the university had concerns about the government’s policies on student visas. The University of Notre Dame’s press office also did not respond to similar questions.
Notre Dame boasts more than 1,700 international students and scholars on its campus, according to its website. IU reports on its website that the university has more than 6,000 international students spread across its campuses.
Fuschetto, the Bloomington-based immigration attorney, told The Lawyer on May 15 he had not received any calls about any new student visa terminations. But he said he had been fielding calls from international students in Bloomington concerned about previous speeding or parking tickets and other minor infractions that they fear could impact their legal status.
“I think the whole incident has heightened the fear quotient among foreign students,” Fuschetto said.
Fuschetto said students and immigration attorneys are taking a wait-and-see approach to what the Trump administration will do next as far as possible terminations of students’ SEVIS statuses and F-1 visas.
The Bloomington attorney said he counsels students that they should be fine if they only have speeding or parking tickets.
“But I do have to put in a caveat that we’re in unprecedented times,” Fuschetto said.
However, Fuschetto said he is preparing students with a criminal record, even those that involve misdemeanors, to consider the possibility that their legal status could be revoked.•
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