Over 130 foreign students take visa repeal to court

Over 130 foreign students have joined a lawsuit challenging the revocation of their student status by the Trump administration, according to court documents obtained by AFP.

The students’ complaint, filed with a federal court in Georgia, targets Justice Secretary Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and the director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons. The suit, initially filed on April 11 on behalf of 17 students, counted 133 on Tuesday evening, according to the latest court documents.

Immigration services “abruptly and illegally” terminated the plaintiffs’ student status through a dedicated registration database (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, SEVIS), even though their visas were in “full compliance,” the complaint highlights. Some were identified in the SEVIS database as having a criminal record when this was not the case, according to this document.

The termination of their student status has “prevented them from continuing their studies and retaining employment in the United States,” and puts them at “risk of arrest, detention, and deportation,” the complaint argues, demanding the restoration of their registration in SEVIS and their legal status. Among these students, whose anonymity is preserved in the court documents “for fear of retaliation,” are individuals from India, China, and Colombia.

In recent weeks, hundreds of foreign students — more than 500, according to CNN — have had their visas revoked, while students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been arrested and threatened with deportation, even though they were in regular status in the U.S.

The Trump administration has also ramped up attacks against several universities, including Columbia and Harvard, accusing them of leftism and allowing anti-Semitism to proliferate on their campuses.