The Trump Administration continues to expand its list of legal immigrants who it seeks to remove from the US. The newest cases are F-1 International Students who are legally studying in the US, the vast majority of whom have no criminal convictions and nothing on their record that warrants forced removal.
The attack on the students begins, usually, with the revocation of the F-1 visa by the US consulate that issued the visa. Normally, there is no explanation for this action, even if requested from the consulate or the Department of State. However, the revocation of the visa, fortunately, has no legal impact on the student’s legal status in the US.
Visas are issued for travel only. The revocation of the visa just means the student will not be able to travel until this completely unjustified policy is stopped by Federal Courts. These are not the immigrants Trump campaigned on: “illegal immigrants with criminal convictions.”
If the visa revocation is not legally a detriment to the student’s status in the US, what is the problem?
The problem is the SEVIS agency that controls F-1 status is now terminating the “registration” of the F-1 student, which turns a completely legal international student out of status and removable. The only reason given so far in these cases is some vague reference to the student’s name appearing in a criminal background report for alleged activities in the US. These allegations are not based on convictions; any student charged with even minor infractions, who has been found not guilty, or the charges were dropped, still has her/his SEVIS registration terminated which makes the student deportable. Many of these students are “found” by internet searches for students who have protested government policies for some reason. To the Trump Administration, exercising the Right to Free Speech is a deportable offense.
Obviously, attorneys around the US are filing lawsuits in Federal Court against this illegal policy, but that will take some time, perhaps weeks before injunctions are issued to stop this process.
Contact David Swaim, Board Certified Immigration Attorney, directly at [email protected]
