Trump admin moves to restore legal status for thousands of foreign students

The Trump administration is restoring legal status for thousands of foreign students whose visas were abruptly terminated earlier this month, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which oversees the student visa program, had begun revoking the legal status of international students in early April without providing thorough explanations. The sudden actions led many students to file lawsuits against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Several federal judges have since issued orders temporarily restoring students' legal rights.

Many of the students which had their visas revoked some kind of arrest record, including minor infractions, but these have been restored. The Wall Street Journal noted that these terminations were separate from the Trump administration’s efforts to arrest and deport foreign students who have participated in antisemitic protests on college campuses.

Now, the administration appears to be revising its stance. ICE is drafting a new policy to determine when students' visas could be terminated in the future. During a hearing in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland, DOJ attorney Elizabeth D. Kurlan said that student visa records will be reactivated for now while ICE establishes a policy that will “provide a framework for status record termination.”

“ICE still maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS [Student and Exchange Visitor Program] record for other reasons," Kurlan said, “such as if a student fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated, or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

Kurlan emphasized that ICE would not terminate a student’s status solely based on information from the National Crime Information Center database.

Several international students saw their SEVIS records restored on Thursday afternoon, according to immigration attorneys who spoke to NBC News. However, not all students have had their status reinstated. Some students at UC Berkeley, for example, are still waiting for their records to be reactivated after they were terminated in the SEVIS several weeks ago.