BUTTE, MT – A complaint and request for a temporary restraining order/preliminary injunction was filed this week here in U.S. District Court, by the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, regarding two full-time Montana State University graduate students who “unlawfully” had their F-1 student immigration status revoked by President Donald Trump’s administration.
According to the ACLU and ACLU Montana Legal Director Alex Rate, the students’ Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database indicated their F-1 visas were “abruptly” revoked April 10 “with no notice or specified explanation as to why.”
Prior to April 10, Rate, in his complaint, writes the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security “began to unilaterally terminate the F-1 student status” under SEVIS, a government database used both by Homeland Security and universities to “track and document the status of international student’s compliance with their F-1 visa.”
Rate questioned the immigration revocation, noting the graduate students didn’t have any “criminal convictions nor immigration violations” and hadn’t ever “participated in any protest in the United States or elsewhere.”
Likewise, Montana State University didn’t provide any additional information or justifications as to why the students’ statuses were terminated.
In the complaint, Rate challenged the decision, stating both students “have dedicated a significant portion of their life, energy, and efforts to pursuing advanced degrees/degrees in higher education,” with one student pursuing a Ph.D in electrical engineering/physics and another pursuing a master’s degree in microbiology.
Rate also states U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is “not authorized to terminate (the students’) student status” and “the grounds cited by ICE in the SEVIS termination do not provide legal authority to terminate” the students’ SEVIS record.
The ACLU asked Federal Judge Dana Christiansen to reinstate the students’ F-1 status so they can “continue their studies and avoid facing the risk of detention and deportation.
The ACLU denounced the Trump Administration’s unjust decision, explaining SEVIS allows ICE to constantly monitor student statuses with the intent to unfairly revoke student immigration statuses.
“The action against these students comes against the backdrop of federal immigration officials undertaking unprecedented nation-wide actions rescinding the legal status of hundreds of international students,” the ACLU Montana argued.
