Over 200 international students caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown are suing the State Department to get their visas reinstated, court documents reviewed by The Hill show.  

Although the Trump administration restored students’ records in the Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) after judges ruled in favor of students across dozens of lawsuits, the government has continued to withhold many students’ visas. 

SEVIS records allow students to stay in the U.S. after entering, while visas are needed to freely leave and return to the U.S. meaning international students with revoked visas are likely to be denied re-entry, even if they are legally permitted to study in the country through SEVIS.

“I can’t visit home because of my visa revocation,” an international student, who requested anonymity fearing repercussions, told The Hill. “It feels like I’m trapped here.”

Lawyers told The Hill that some students who had left the U.S. were already facing issues trying to come back to the country, despite having their SEVIS statuses restored. Several of their clients had to reapply for visas only to be denied.

That’s left other students in the same situation effectively “not being able to travel,” said Charles Kuck, an attorney heading a lawsuit challenging visa terminations against the government.

“You can’t go home to see your mom who’s dying, you can’t go home for your sister’s wedding, you can’t go home for break, you can’t study abroad,” he said. 

Lawsuits filed in federal court

Immigration lawyers representing 217 students in total have filed two lawsuits against Secretary of State Marco Rubio challenging their visa terminations in the past two months.

The first lawsuit was filed in early August by attorneys Steven Brown and Brad Banias, representing 59 students across the U.S. The suit also names Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as defendants. 

The second lawsuit was filed in September by a team of lawyers from IMMpact Litigation, a group of independent firms focused on litigation to change immigration policy, on behalf of 158 international students. The lawsuit names only Rubio as a defendant.

Both suits argue that the State Department’s revocation of students’ visas was unlawful. Lawyers plan to seek class action status for the lawsuit filed in August. 

In some cases, lawyers said, it appears students’ visas were terminated only because their SEVIS status was terminated – a move that was eventually blocked by courts.

The lawsuits also argue that student visas were terminated programmatically under the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative,” meaning that the government didn’t satisfy legal requirements for visa terminations, which they said need individualized review. 

The Trump administration had piloted the multi-agency initiative to target international students. 

According to court testimony, ICE ran the names of 1.3 million foreign students through a federal database that tracked criminal history and interactions with the law.

Once they received hits, DHS and the State Department coordinated to revoke students’ legal status and ability to travel freely to and from the U.S. DHS, which maintains the SEVIS system, terminated students’ SEVIS records, while the State Department terminated visas. 

The State Department said in August that it had revoked over 6,000 visas since Trump entered office.

“We will not tolerate people here on visas who break our laws or support terrorism,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said in a statement to The Hill. “That is not only common sense, it’s an essential component of our national security.”

“Unlike the past administration, the Trump Administration puts the safety of American citizens first,” he continued. “We will continue to revoke the visas of those who put the safety of our citizens at risk.”

Neither DHS nor ICE responded to The Hill’s requests for comment. The White House referred The Hill to the State Department for comment. 

Confusion over student status

A lack of public awareness over the difference between SEVIS and visas has led to general confusion over the plight of students with revoked visas, lawyers said. 

“While people use the term visa to describe anything related to immigrants entering or exiting the country, a visa is…a document that is only useful for seeking admission into the United States,” Banias told The Hill. 

“So if you’re in the U.S. and your visa gets revoked, it doesn’t mean you have to leave the U.S.,” Banias continued. “It just means the next time you leave the U.S., you don’t have the ability to use that same visa and seek admission.”

The government’s public statements may have also contributed to the confusion. 

“We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in April after the reinstatement of SEVIS records for students. “What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked.”

But McLaughlin’s remarks don’t match what immigration lawyers such as Kuck, Banias, and Greg Siskind have seen. Their clients many of whom had both their visas and SEVIS status terminated did see their SEVIS records reactivated.

“One would have thought that [the State Department] would have just followed the lead, and when the record was restored by ICE, that it would be followed up with a visa reinstatement,” Siskind, the creator of visalaw.com, said in an interview. “But that hasn’t happened.”

The Hill spoke with eight immigration lawyers who filed lawsuits on behalf of international students, who said they believed most students who had both their visas and SEVIS records revoked had never gotten their visas reinstated.

Kuck and Jay Gairson, an immigration attorney based in Seattle, Washington, said a majority of students caught in the federal government’s spring crackdown had both their visas and SEVIS terminated – meaning thousands of students potentially still don’t have visas.

‘It’s been so tough for us’

The complaint filed by the team at IMMpact Litigation— which includes Kuck and Siskinddescribes significant hardships faced by international students as a result of their visa revocations, including derailed career plans, emotional distress and financial loss.

The international student with a revoked visa described a similar situation to The Hill. Both he and his brother had their visas revoked due to assault charges that he said were eventually dismissed.

“It’s been so tough for us, and we have been going through it,” he said. But they both wanted to fight the visa terminations, he added. 

He isn’t part of the two lawsuits, but believes his lawyer will soon file a lawsuit against the State Department as well.

Efforts to restore SEVIS statuses moved fast this spring because lawyers were able to prove irreparable harm and won restraining orders, Kuck said. 

“We can’t show irreparable harm for the visas,” Kuck said, noting students with revoked visas are not in immediate danger of being forced out of the U.S.

He doubts that cases against the State Department challenging student visa revocations will move quickly as a result. While Siskind and Banias hesitated to give estimates, Kuck believes it will take six months to a year for the lawsuits to resolve.

The lawsuits may be further delayed as a result of the government shutdown. Civil lawsuits against the federal government will not proceed in courts for the shutdown’s duration.

In both lawsuits, immigration lawyers have asked for students’ visas to be reinstated. But lawyers are unsure how their cases will play out.

“I do think those will be a bit heavier of a fight, perhaps than some of the [SEVIS] status lawsuits were,” Zachary New, a lawyer on IMMpact Litigation’s case against the government, said.