Federal judge blocks Trump administration from revoking international student legal status, providing protection for students nationwide for the first time.
According to NBC News, a federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration's move to revoke the legal status of international students at universities across the country. Judge White also ordered that during the ongoing case regarding the previous revocation of status, the government cannot arrest or detain any foreign-born students due to immigration issues.
In his ruling, White stated that the Trump administration "seriously disrupted" the lives of plaintiffs and other international students.
Although many international students have successfully challenged the Trump administration's decision on an individual basis, ensuring their right to remain in the United States, this injunction is the first to provide nationwide protection for students.
In his order, White wrote that the government cannot transfer plaintiffs who are currently involved in litigation to judicial districts outside their place of residence, nor can it cancel the records of restored student statuses.
"In this case and similar lawsuits nationwide, defendants have always changed their stance abruptly in response to the court's concerns," White said. "If an injunction is not issued against the defendants' behavior of evading their mandatory obligations, this 'whack-a-mole' approach will never end."
The Trump administration began revoking visas, records, and legal statuses of thousands of international students starting in March. Those whose statuses were revoked appear to mainly be individuals who participated in political activities or had criminal charges, such as drunk drivers.
In late April, the Department of Homeland Security revealed during a court hearing that 10 to 20 employees were used to input the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students into the National Crime Information Center database for screening. Operated by the FBI, the database contains criminal history information.
Experts criticized this approach, pointing out that the database relies on voluntary reporting of data from cities, counties, states, and other sources, and that sometimes the final disposition of cases may not be included in the database.
Therefore, immigration lawyers and policy experts noted that some students whose cases were dismissed or not convicted might still have their statuses revoked.
Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1832858773623881/
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