After weeks of legal challenges and mounting confusion, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun reinstating the immigration records of certain international students whose statuses were recently revoked, court filings reveal.
The decision, which affects students whose records were terminated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), was communicated in an email from U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter to Brad Banias, an attorney representing several impacted students.
“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations,” the email 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 reactivated 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.”
Although ICE has agreed to reactivate some records, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) clarified the move only covers students whose visas had not been revoked.
“We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation,” a DHS spokesperson told ABC News. “What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”
The status terminations triggered widespread legal battles across the country, as students and attorneys scrambled to determine the immigration consequences. Charles Kuck, a lawyer representing 133 students in a class-action lawsuit, told ABC his clients started notifying him Thursday night that their SEVIS records had been restored.
While the restoration offers immediate relief for many students, broader concerns remain. Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Hampshire, cautioned that many questions are still unanswered, including the specific criteria ICE will use moving forward and whether students not involved in lawsuits will see similar relief.
Meanwhile, attorneys and advocacy groups say the government’s sudden terminations left students in an uncertain legal status, threatening their ability to remain in the U.S., continue their studies, or seek employment. In some cases, students faced pressure from universities to depart the country, while others struggled to obtain clear guidance from immigration officials.
Confusion spilled over into federal courtrooms, where judges sharply questioned the government’s handling of the issue.
“Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque?” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes asked federal attorneys during a recent hearing over the SEVIS record terminations. “I’ve got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS. And now, his two very experienced lawyers can’t even tell him whether or not he’s here legally because the court can’t tell him whether or not he’s here legally because the government’s counsel can’t tell him if he’s here legally.”
