The Department of Homeland Security said this week in a Michigan court that the agency does not have the authority to terminate students’ immigration statuses by terminating their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System. Known as SEVIS, the database allows both universities and authorities to track information about international students on visas in the U.S.
Homeland Security’s changes to SEVIS, the Trump administration said, have no bearing on a student’s lawful nonimmigrant status.
“Terminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual’s nonimmigrant status in the United States,” said Andre Watson, assistant director of the national security division for Homeland Security Investigations, in the filing. Watson added that existing laws and regulations “do not provide” the DHS-run Student Exchange and Visitor Program “the authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record.”
This will be news to many hundreds of students who have had their SEVIS records terminated by DHS in recent weeks — and were then told by their schools or the government that they have thus lost their immigration status and must immediately leave the country.
“Under pressure from ICE, schools have been advising students they are out of status after SEVIS record termination, and in many cases disenrolling them as a result,” said Nathan Yaffe, an attorney representing international students facing deportation in other cases. “Now ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever.”
“Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”
Based on school officials checking their SEVIS records, hundreds of students have been led to believe that they had lost their student immigration status because a terminated record in the database is broadly taken to mean a student has fallen out of status.
The DHS’s latest claims to the contrary in court are sure to only sow further confusion, but they are strong grounds, Yaffe said, for schools to immediately stop disenrolling students believed to be out of status due to SEVIS record checks.
“Any school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to re-enroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration’s agenda,” Yaffe said. “Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”
What Schools Told Students
The DHS declaration was filed in response to a lawsuit brought by four Michigan students, who are suing the Trump administration over the reported loss of their F-1 student statuses. In response, the government argued that the case should be thrown out, since DHS did not remove the students’ statuses when it terminated their SEVIS records.
According to Inside Higher Ed, 16 lawsuits from at least 50 students have challenged the Trump administration over visa revocations and deportation threats. A number of the suits have challenged DHS’s authority to summarily change students’ statuses on SEVIS. It was only for the first time in the Michigan case, however, that the government said that its SEVIS interventions had no bearing on a student’s status.
The admission was an apparent effort by the government to dodge legal challenges. The students are suing to have their legal student immigration status restored, and the government is suggesting that their SEVIS terminations never changed the students’ statuses, so the agency cannot be sued for its actions. Communications from government agencies and school administrations, however, have up until this point taken a SEVIS termination to mean that a student’s status is terminated too.
In an email sent by a school official at the University of Michigan to one of the Michigan plaintiffs, for example, the student was told, “In our daily review of SEVIS, we learned that your SEVIS record was ‘terminated’ by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.” The school official continued: “We do not have any additional information, but this termination means you no longer hold valid F-1 status within the United States. You will need to cease any employment immediately. Since this termination does not carry a grace period, we must recommend you make plans to exit the United States immediately.”
The government’s defense in court, however, claimed the direct opposite, noting in a filing: “There are no legal consequences to the termination of a SEVIS record.”
The University of Michigan and Wayne State University — the two schools attended by plaintiffs in the Michigan lawsuit — did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment, nor did DHS, ICE, and the Department of Justice, which represents the administration in court.
A student plaintiff in another, similar case filed in California received an email directly from the State Department, informing them that their student visa had been revoked. The email fails to distinguish in any meaningful way between visa status and legal immigration status, which are not the same thing. In one paragraph, the State Department tells the student that their visa has been “revoked under Section 221(i) of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act.”
The email later notes, “Remaining in the United States without a lawful immigration status can result in fines, detention, and/or deportation” — without informing the student that they may very well still have lawful immigration status.
“Given the gravity of this situation, individuals whose visa was revoked may wish to demonstrate their intent to depart the United States using the CBP Home App,” the State Department email told the student. (The State Department declined to comment, citing pending legislation.)
Ranjani Srinivasan, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University fled to Canada in March after being targeted by ICE. After DHS terminated her SEVIS status, Srinivasan wrote in a statement that Columbia “arbitrarily de-enrolled” her, ending her “legal status, worker status, and housing.” She blamed “ICE threats and Columbia complicity” for her decision to flee.
The Homeland Security website, which offers official guidance on international student rules and regulations, suggests that a terminated record indicates that the student’s legal status has been terminated too. The site notes that a terminated record in SEVIS means that a student “loses all on- and/or off-campus employment authorization,” “cannot re-enter the United States on the terminated SEVIS record,” and that ICE agents may investigate to “confirm the departure of the student.”
DHS also says that a terminated record “could indicate that the nonimmigrant no longer maintains” their legal status, but that it is “designated school officials,” rather than ICE and other DHS agents who “mostly terminate” these records.
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