Ten students and alumni whose visas were terminated earlier this month had their visas restored by the federal government, a University spokesperson confirmed to the Maroon. The move comes as the Trump administration backs down from its revocation of the visas of thousands of international students in the United States.
Joseph Carilli, a Department of Justice (DoJ) lawyer, told a federal judge on April 25 that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is initiating a new policy for the review of student visas. In the interim, DoJ lawyers have filed motions to dismiss court cases over the revoked visas, as ICE is restoring the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS) records of student visas.
The New York Times quoted a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official who warned that the students may yet be at risk of seeing their legal status terminated in the future.
Brian Green, a lawyer representing several dozen international students, shared a statement about the new ICE policy provided by a government lawyer with the Associated Press (AP). “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 statement read.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs for the DHS, told the AP that the administration “restore[d] SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”
Along with UChicago, students at Yale University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley have reported to their respective schools’ newspapers that their visa statuses had been restored.
Previously, on April 10, the Office of International Affairs (OIA) found that seven UChicago students and alums had their visas revoked for “unlawful activity.” No further explanation was given. OIA concurrently sent out updated guidance to international students and offered to connect those who lost their visas with immigration attorneys.
The decision by ICE was condemned by the non-tenure-track union Faculty Forward, which described the move as “the latest in a series of authoritarian, unconstitutional, and unconscionable moves by the Trump White House to target and harass international students and immigrants, colleges and universities, people exercising their rights to freedom of speech, and other groups this administration claims are its enemies.”
