NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ- Six Rutgers University students, including five international students and one a recent graduate, have been targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, according to the ACLU of New Jersey which has filed a federal lawsuit for these international students.
Reports show that more than 1,700 students nationally are going through this at around the same time, which the ACLU of New Jersey argues isn’t a coincidence.
This targeting has resulted in each student to immediately have a terminated status although ACLU- NJ states that they’re all in good standing and have done nothing to warrant this.
ACLU of New Jersey and Rutgers Immigrant Community have filed a federal lawsuit with a request for a temporary restraining order to protect the students, while the case is unresolved, from deportation and being arrested or detained.
“The Trump administration has been unlawfully targeting international students across the country,” stated ACLU-NJ Legal Director Jeanne LoCicero, “to chill academic freedom and undermine the next generation of leaders.”
Director LoCicero also emphasized that international students are at risk of “arrest, detention, and deportation.”
ACLU of New Jersey represented five international students and one recent graduate from Rutgers University who have maintained good academic standing and never engaged in any actions that could subject them to revocation of their visa.
“By abruptly terminating their visa on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), ICE is communicating that ‘the students have failed to maintain their student status.'” – ACLU of New Jersey
By abruptly terminating their visa on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), ACLU of New Jersey argues ICE is communicating that “the students have failed to maintain their student status.”
However, the ACLU of New Jersey argues that such a claim is “baseless.”
Rutgers Law School professor Jessica Rofé points in an ACLU statement that abruptly cancelling student visas “upends their academic and career trajectories, disrupts our communities, and is an affront to due process.”
ACLU of New Jersey argues that revoking student visas without an adequate explanation, or an opportunity to be heard, “violates their fundamental right to due process provided under the Fifth Amendment.”
ACLU of New Jersey cited a report that stated more than 1,700 international students have had their visas revoked; and as ACLU argues, such a number of visa cancellations demonstrates that the US Department of Homeland Security has adopted a policy of “mass cancellation of F-1 student status.”
