Trump administration reverses course, will reinstate international student visas

In a reversal announced Friday, President Donald Trump’s administration said it will reinstate visa registrations for thousands of international students enrolled in U.S. universities whose statuses were stripped over minor infractions.

The change comes after weeks of visa student status terminations across the country. The mass terminations were increasingly met with lawsuits filed by affected students, including several in Minnesota, and federal judges granting temporary restraining orders on the cancellations.

At Minnesota State University, Mankato, visa registrations for eight of the 12 students with terminated records have been reinstated, a statement from the university said Friday.

“We are uncertain about the reason for the reversal, but are happy for our students that this is behind them and that they can continue to pursue their lawfully authorized studies and work in the U.S.,” said Will Coghill-Behrends, Minnesota State Mankato’s dean of global education.

Students received no communication that their terminations had been reversed, and Minnesota State Mankato officials said they only learned of the change after scanning their records database.

Four Minnesota State Mankato students continue to have terminated records, the university’s statement said.

At St. Cloud State University, seven of the eight international students whose visas were revoked have been reinstated, according to spokesman Zach Dwyer.

And at South Central College, with campuses in North Mankato and Faribault, one international student affected by visa revocations had their status reinstated, a spokeswoman said.

The Associated Press reported that a lawyer for the government read a statement in federal court in Oakland that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was manually restoring the student status for people whose records were terminated in recent weeks.

A similar statement was read by a government attorney in a separate case in Washington on Friday, said lawyer Brian Green, who represents the plaintiff in that case. Green provided the AP with a copy of the statement that the government lawyer emailed to him.

“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations,” the statement read, referring to an acronym for student visas. “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.“

Green said the government lawyer said it would apply to all students in the same situation, not just those who filed lawsuits.

At least 50 students in Minnesota had seen their visas revoked or immigration records terminated in SEVIS since early April.

NCIC is the National Crime Information Center, maintained by the FBI. Many of the students whose records were changed were told that their status was terminated as a result of a criminal records check or that their visa had been revoked.

Just this week, a federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to temporarily restore visas for five international graduates from Concordia University in St. Paul after the group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court over their terminations. Four of the students referenced prior driving offenses in their lawsuit, including one who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of drunken driving. One of the students said they’d committed no criminal infractions.

Two other judges issued separate orders requiring the Trump administration to reinstate the status of two international students − from Metropolitan State University in St. Paul and the University of Minnesota − for 14 days after the orders.

International students who have been detained by federal immigration agents also have gone to court to fight their continued jailing. Doğukan Günaydın, a Turkish graduate student at the University of Minnesota, sued shortly after officers arrested him outside his St. Paul apartment over a previous drunken-driving offense.

Mohammed Hoque, a Minnesota State Mankato student from Bangladesh, filed a lawsuit alleging he’s been unlawfully held in jail following his arrest on the way home from coding class. In the lawsuit, Hoque said he believes his arrest and detention stems from his vocal support for Palestinians.