Trump administration restoring legal status of international students after legal challenges to visa crackdown

The Trump administration said it would back down after numerous court challenges to a crackdown on the legal status of international students in the U.S.

Attorneys representing the government in numerous cases said that the legal statuses of the international students would be restored while Immigration and Customs Enforcement establishes better procedures to determine which should be terminated.

'It’s obvious that the Trump administration spent the four years of Biden plotting their revenge on the immigration system.'

Dozens of lawsuits were filed in the wake of the decision to terminate hundreds of student visas and other immigration authorizations.

Some students alleged that they were told to leave the country over minuscule infractions, while others say they didn't know why they were being asked to leave. Some claimed that they were going into hiding over the orders.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Kurlan read a statement about the restoration of legal status in an Oakland, California, courtroom. A similar statement was about the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, read by others in other cases.

“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations," the statement reads. "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 Associated Press said the terminations affected about 1,200 students, some of whom responded by leaving the country.

One of the attorneys for a terminated-status student opined that President Donald Trump had plotted the decision as a kind of revenge against the immigration system during the first and only term of former President Joe Biden.

“By now it’s obvious that the Trump administration spent the four years of Biden plotting their revenge on the immigration system,” said Cleveland-based immigration attorney Jath Shao. “But once some brave students and lawyers went to the courts — the administration’s defenders were unable or unwilling to explain the rationale.”

Democrats and other critics of the administration have accused Trump of acting unconstitutionally in some of the actions taken to fulfill his promise for mass deportations.

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