Trump Administration Backs Down On Student Visa Terminations, Restores Them

The Justice Department announced that it was working to develop new guidelines after students racked up wins in court.

Facing mounting courtroom losses over student visa revocations, the Justice Department announced that it was backing down and would manually restore many student visas while it developed new policy guidelines for their removal.

The surprise reversal came after thousands of foreign students had their immigration records abruptly terminated in the federal system that keeps track of them, which is maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

The terminations meant that the students were suddenly vulnerable to deportation, with some unable to figure out what they had done wrong. Some of the students appeared to be flagged for participation in pro-Palestine demonstrations while others had minor legal infractions on their records, many of which had been thrown out.

The about-face marks an unexpected defeat in President Donald Trump’s war on immigration.

During a Friday morning hearing in federal court, a federal prosecutor read a statement from ICE noting it was “developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations,” referencing the system that tracks students’ immigration status, called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System.