ICE reverses end to legal status for some international students, which impacted Rochester universities
U of R and RIT (WHEC file photos)
WASHINGTON — The federal government is reversing its decision to end the legal status of hundreds of international students around the U.S. after many students filed court challenges, a government lawyer confirmed on Friday.
The University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology are among the colleges where some international students have had their visas revoked. We’re working to learn if the government’s decision will restore the visas to these students.
According to the AP, more than 1,200 students have had their visas or legal status revoked since late March. Judges around the country had already issued temporary orders restoring the students’ records in a federal database of international students maintained by ICE.
Leaders at the U of R and RIT said that, like many colleges across the country, they found out about the visa revocations after doing a routine check in that database. UR President Sarah Mangelsdorf said in a letter that five current students and six recent graduates had their visas revoked. RIT said “several” students have been affected.
A government lawyer read a statement in federal court in Oakland that said ICE was manually restoring the statuses for students 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. 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.”