The Trump Administration said Friday that it is restoring the visas records of potentially thousands of foreign students in the United States whose legal status had recently ended.
The decision was announced during a judicial hearing before a federal judge in Boston who was listening to a challenge of one of the many international students demanding nationally for the actions of the administration.
The status of these students had been revoked as a result that their records are completed from a database of the approximately 1.1 million holders of visas of foreign students, which puts them at risk of deportation.
Since Trump assumed the position on January 20, the records of more than 4,700 students have been eliminated from the database maintained from the application of immigration and customs of the United States (ICE) known as information systems for student visitors and exchanges (sevis), according to the American immigration lawyers association.
The database monitors compliance with the terms of the visa and records the addresses of foreign students, progress towards graduation and other information. To remain in the database, student visas holders have to obey conditions such as employment limits and avoid illegal activities.
Shortly before Friday’s hearing in the case of Boston University, Carrie Zheng, the United States District Judge, F Dennis Saylor, said he had received an email from a government lawyer who alerted him to a change of position for ICE.
According to that email, ICE was now “developing a policy that will provide a framework for the record terminations of Sevis.” Until that policy is issued, sevis records for Zheng and the plaintiffs located in a similar way will remain active or will be restored, according to email.
Foreign students leave the American dream about Trump’s repression
After the administration of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, revoked hundreds of student visas and threatened deportation for the participants of the Pro-Palestinian campus protests, international students said. AFP They were reconsidering their dreams of winning titles in the United States.
Trump has launched an offensive against higher education in recent weeks, accusing universities, including Columbia and Harvard to allow anti -Semitism on their campus.
In response, more than 130 international students throughout the United States have joined a federal demand that accuses the Trump administration of illegally canceling their visas, endangering their legal status in the country.
But others have been dissuaded to set foot in the United States first.
The German Tariq Kandil rejected the opportunity to spend six months in the exchange at the University of California, Davis, fearing that the United States government was the white of the United States for their publications on social networks criticizing Trump and speaking of Palestine.
“I didn’t want to have to censor me just to be able to enter the country,” said the 21 -year -old AFP. “The United States is supposed to be the country of freedom of expression.”
Kandil said I was “afraid to be arrested when entering or leaving the country and finding me in detention pending deportation.” He was also worried that his name attracted undue scrutiny.
“Tariq Kandil is not a typical name when you come from Europe.”
‘Study in fear’
More than 1.1 million international students attended the University or University in the United States during academic year 2023/24, a record figure, according to a report published by the Educational Office of the State Department and the Institute of International Education.
Now, Trump is aggressively attacked in the best universities where students protested the Israel military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, cutting federal funds and ordering immigration officers to deport manifest students, including those with green cards.
Rania Kettani, a Moroccan student who currently lives in Abu Dhabi, joined the protests against Israel’s behavior in Gaza’s conflict while studying at New York University in 2023.
“It is inconceivable for me that, in today’s context, doing exactly the same could lead to deportation and shorten my studies,” Kettani told AFP. The 22 -year -old had planned to request a master’s degree at an American university.
“Seeing the number of students whose visas were revoked, I gave up,” he said. “I don’t want to live and study with fear.”
‘A little hostile’
Naveen, a 26 -year -old who asked to be identified with a pseudonym, is in the process of requesting an American visa after being admitted to a university there.
To prepare for his studies, he has joined the online forums that the “two and not do” to be an international student in the United States.
The current situation is “a bit hostile,” he said AFP. But Naveen said he believes that the visas and deportations of revoked students are pointing to “immigrants who do not follow the law properly and do illegal practices.”
He hopes that the atmosphere around higher education improves “in a year or two.” Naveen said he sees a brilliant future for himself in the United States and wants to help the United States to “economy and people.”
The United States could “be a really happy place where people will not feel this type of uncertainties or any doubt at the bottom of their minds,” he told AFP.
