The US government is restoring the legal status of hundreds of international students after a wave of lawsuits challenged the abrupt suspension of their visas.
The sudden policy reversal was announced during a court hearing in Oakland, California, which brought together eight lawsuits filed by international students who argued that the federal government had terminated their right to remain in the US without due process. Attorneys in those cases had asked the court to issue a nationwide injunction covering all students whose legal records were terminated since 1 March, and were at risk of deportation.
On Friday, assistant US attorney Elizabeth D Kurlan said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) is developing a new policy to govern how records are terminated on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (Sevis), a federal database used to track international students’ immigration status. A similar announcement was…