Trump’s Mass Cancellation of Student Visas Illustrates the Lawlessness of His Immigration Crackdown
Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suddenly terminated about 4,700 records in the database of foreign students with F-1 visas authorizing them to attend American universities. That move, which sowed panic among students across the country, was the result of the Trump administration’s “Student Criminal Alien Initiative.” But contrary to the implication of that label, the initiative affected many people who had no criminal record that would justify revoking their visas. Nor did ICE cite any other specific justification listed in the relevant regulations. Instead, the students were told their records had been terminated for “otherwise failing to maintain status.”
Although ICE subsequently restored those records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), they still included notations of the prior terminations. Those black marks, along with the possibility that ICE might reverse course again at any time, left thousands of students uncertain about whether they would be allowed to remain in the United States and complete their degrees. On Thursday, a federal judge in California issued a nationwide preliminary injunction that aims to rectify that situation, and his reasoning highlights the alarming legal shortcuts that characterize President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The SEVIS controversy may seem arcane. But it illustrates several disturbing themes of Trump’s deportation crusade, including his indiscriminate approach, disregard for due process, blatant flouting of statutory and constitutional requirements, shifting legal positions, and determination to avoid judicial review.
The SEVIS terminations “reflect an instinct that has become prevalent in our society to effectuate change: move fast and break things,” writes U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, a George W. Bush appointee who is considering several lawsuits by foreign students in the Northern District of California. “That instinct must be checked when it conflicts with established principles of law.”
White’s preliminary injunction bars the government from “arresting and incarcerating any of the named Plaintiffs in these cases and similarly situated individuals nationwide pending resolution of these proceedings.” The injunction also says the government may not transfer any of those individuals “outside the jurisdiction of their residence,” impose “any adverse legal effect” based on the SEVIS terminations, or “revers[e] the reinstatement” of the records.
Explaining the rationale for a nationwide injunction, White says the plaintiffs “have met their burden to show a likelihood of irreparable harm.” He “sees no rational distinction between the harms inflicted on the [named plaintiffs] and the harms inflicted on similarly situated individuals across the United States.” He notes that “these cases and the litigation around the United States” stem from “a uniform policy that uniformly wreaked havoc not only on the lives of Plaintiffs here but on similarly situated F-1 nonimmigrants across the United States and continues do so.”
The plaintiffs in the California lawsuits “allege Defendants violated the Due Process clause of the United States Constitution,” White notes before alluding to the various ways in which the Trump administration, in its eagerness to summarily expel as many foreigners as possible, has disregarded due process. “Lest any Defendant be unsure,” he archly adds, “that clau
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