The Department of Homeland Security said this week in a Michigan court that the agency does not have the authority to terminate students’ immigration statuses by terminating their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System. Known as SEVIS, the database allows both universities and authorities to track information about international students on visas in U.S.

Homeland Security’s changes to SEVIS, the Trump administration said, have no bearing on a student’s lawful nonimmigrant status.

“Terminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual’s nonimmigrant status in the United States,” said Andre Watson, assistant director of the national security division for Homeland Security Investigations, in the filing. Watson added that existing laws and regulations “do not provide” the DHS-run Student Exchange and Visitor Program “the authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record.”

This will be news to many hundreds of students who have had their SEVIS records terminated by DHS in recent weeks — and were then told by their schools or the government that they have thus lost their immigration status and must immediately leave the country.

“Under pressure from ICE, schools have been advising students they are out of status after SEVIS record termination, and in many cases disenrolling them as a result,” said Nathan Yaffe, an attorney representing international students facing deportation in other cases. “Now ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever.”

“Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”

Based on school officials checking their SEVIS records, hundreds of students have been led to believe that they had lost their student immigration status because a terminated record in the database is broadly taken to mean a student has fallen out of status.

The DHS’s latest claims to the contrary in court are sure to only sow further confusion, but they are strong grounds, Yaffe said, for schools to immediately stop disenrolling students believed to be out of status due to SEVIS record checks.

“Any school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to re-enroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration’s agenda,” Yaffe said. “Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”

What Schools Told Students

The DHS declaration was filed in response to a lawsuit brought by four Michigan students, who are suing the Trump administration over the reported loss of their F-1 student statuses. In response, the government argued that the case should be thrown out, since DHS did not remove the students’ statuses when it terminated their SEVIS records.

According to Inside Higher Ed, 16 lawsuits from at least 50 students have challenged the Trump administration over visa revocations and deportation threats. A number of the suits have challenged DHS’s authority to summarily change students’........

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