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Rutgers students sue over visa issue

Trump administration revoked their status

By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... Five international students and a recent graduate at Rutgers University are suing the Trump administration for abruptly ending their student visa status, a move they say has upended their lives and left them fearful of arrest and deportation.
..... The students, who are all form India or China, say they were given no notice and no expiation and have had to cancel or disrupt work, research and studies.
..... "To have my whole life turned upside down without any chance to understand why or to defend myself is truly unfathomable to me," said one of the plaintiffs, a native of India and a PhD candidate in engineering.
..... The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, representing the students, foiled the complaint Tuesday [04/22/2025] in U.S. District Court. It alleges that officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and with Immigration and Custom Enforcement violated federal law and the students' right to due process and caused them irreparable harm.
..... The lawsuit is one in a growing number what have been field across the country challenging the Trump administration's aggressive actions to revoke visa and cancel legal status or foreign students aorta the country. At least 1,700 students at more than 250 colleges and universities have been affected, said Inside Higher Ed, an Online publication.
..... Homeland Security terminated the students; records in early April [2025] in the Student and exchange Visitor Information system, OR SEVIS, a federal database used to track immigration status, effectively revoking their F-1 student visas.
..... Students can lose legal status in some circumstances, including if they commit a crime, do unauthorized work or fail to keep a full course of study. These students did not violate any of those rules, the lawsuit says, The student who recently graduated was enrolled in an authorized employment training program open to F-1 visa recipients.
..... "None of them have engaged in any conduct that should subject them to this type of unfair and arbitrary action by ICE," ACLU-NJ said.
..... The five current students are in PhD and masters; programs in engineering, computer engineering and health science. The other plaintiff recently graduated with a degree in computer science.
..... "All have worked very hard to achieve what they have in their academic careers, in which they are seeking or have recently obtained advanced graduate degrees," the lawsuit says. "they have also invested significant time and money in their education. in choosing to come to the United States to study, Plaintiffs relied on exposition laws, regularizations, and policies."
..... Now they are "unsure how they can salvage their research or degrees." the suit says.
..... The change in status also means they are no longer authorized to work. One student, months away from completing a PhD, worried they would not be able to prepare the lab work necessary to defend their dissertation.
..... Some students "who rely on funds from their authorized employment to pay for rent and daily necessities" are facing "an mediate financial crisis," the lawsuit says. The government;s actions also makes them "vulnerable to ICE arrest, detention and deportation," it says.
..... "Some plaintiffs do not feel safe going outside or traveling domestically to meet with other academics about their research, rendering them unable to complete their studies or fulfill their academic objectives," the suit says. "I am afraid to leave my home out of fear that I will be detained," said one of the plaintiffs. "I feel hat I an in a home prison," said one student.
..... the attorneys point to other cases in which students have been detained after losing student visa status, including Tufts University PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk. Plainclothes ICE officers arrested her suddenly on the street, eventually sending her to a detention center in Louisianian and placing her in removal proceedings.

'Uncertainty and fear'

..... The students are seeking a temporary restraining order that would prohibit ICE form arresting, detaining or deporting them while the case is pending. they also what the court to correct their records in the SEVIS system and have their visas reinstated.
..... Similar lawsuits have been filed by students in other states who saw their F-1 status canceled without explanation. On Monday [04/21/202 a federal judge in the U.S. district court for the Northern District of Georgia ordered the U.S. government to reinstate the mitigation status of 133 current and former college students who lost status. The judge rule that the students faced irreparable harm, including deportation and loss of education.
..... The students' legal team - which also includes the Rutgers Immigrant Community Assistance Project and attorney s form the Newark firm Gibbons P.C. -say the attempt to push out these Rutgers students is part of a wider Homeland Security Department policy of mass termination of student's status across the country.
..... "The abrupt termination of the SEVIS records and status without meaningful process or justification in an attempt to coerce them to hastily depart upends their academic and career trajectories, disrupts pour communities, and is an affront to due process," said Jessica Rofe director of the Constitutional Rights Clinic and an assistant professor of law at Rutgers law School.
..... Rutgers is home ti more than 9,000 international students and scholars from about 125 countries around the world , its website says.
..... In total, 14 Rutgers students have seen their student mitigation status terminated in the SEVIS system, the lawsuit says: 13 are from china or India.
..... Jonathan Holloway, the university president, said in an email April 6 [2025] that the move to revoke visas was "chilling to the international community."
..... "The university deeply benefits from - and we strongly support - our international students and scholars," Holloway said. "recent media reports regarding travel bans and visa reviews by the federal government have created uncertainty and fear."

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