‘Games of chicken’: Trump reversing foreign student legal status raises concerns
While the Trump administration's reinstatement of the legal status of international students on Friday seems like it could be a positive move, legal experts and international students are wary of its implications.
Over the past month, the federal government revoked numerous foreign students' Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database (SEVIS) records without notice. The records are required for living and studying in the U.S.
To Leo Gerdén, a Harvard international student, the announcement about the reversal is only a partial victory.
" I'm afraid that they're going to go back to the drawing board and going to find new, innovative, and perhaps smarter ways of pursuing the same policy of essentially harassing international students into silence," he said.
The administration said it would be working on a new policy for international students studying in the U.S. to provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations.
The status of international students' visas is tracked through the SEVIS database. A SEVIS record allows a foreign student to remain in the United States. Over the course of the past month, over a thousand students have been notified that their student visas and/or their status had been revoked.
In response, over 100 lawsuits were filed, with more than 50 of the cases ordering the Trump administration to temporarily undo the actions, according to Politico.
Five international students — including two from Worcester Polytechnic Institute — filed a federal class action lawsuit last week in New Hampshire federal court that aims to represent more than 100 students in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Rhode Island who had their F-1 student immigration status revoked by the Republican administration.
Gerdén said he still doesn't feel safe as an international student in the U.S. who has spoken out against the Trump administration.
" I am feeling it every day, whenever I'm walking on the street, I'm looking behind my shoulder and thinking if that man who looks like a civilian is actually a civilian or if it's a masked ICE agent," he said.
What does the reversal mean for foreign students?
The decision by the Trump administration raises more questions than answers, according to legal experts.
" All we have seen is a series of restoration of SEVIS but we can't tell from the systems we've seen so far whether they're retroactive. We can't tell how that will affect the student's future statuses. We can't tell if ICE will be working with [the] Department of State to un-revoke the visas they caused revocations of, and we can't tell whether or not ICE will even issue an apology to these students for upending their lives," Charles Kuck, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said.
Even if students' SEVIS records are restored, it is unclear whether they will have a period of unlawful presence from their revocation, which will cause them future problems, Kuck said.
" We don't know any of the real information you need to know as a lawyer to determine whether this is a good measure, a full measure or a half measure," said Kuck, who is also an adjunct faculty member at Emory University.
While students' SEVIS records are being reinstated, it remains unclear whether their student visa could also be reinstated, according to Stephen Yale-Loehr, a retired immigration law professor at Cornell University.
"It is a welcome development, but there are a lot of questions that remain to be answered," he said.
Why did Trump admin. reverse terminated legal statuses?
While the Trump administration's decision to reverse course isn't fully known, legal experts suspect it could be due to the number of court cases that have gone against the federal government's actions.
The actions from the Trump administration were "legally indefensible," Ian Campbell, an immigration lawyer, said.
"Even if one of these cases had made it to the Supreme Court, which is generally highly deferential to Trump on immigration, especially, they would have been forced to reinstate SEVIS for all of the cases I am aware of," Campbell said.
He questions who is "behind the wheel, and what the plan was all along?"
"If they weren't prepared to fight those cases for more than a week, why bother in the first place? Even if the plan was just to intimidate international students and the universities that sponsor them, why fold so quickly?" said Campbell, who graduated from Harvard Law.
The Trump administration did something similar with tariffs, announcing it would impose up to a 145% tariff on Chinese goods and a universal 10% tariff on all countries in addition to higher tariffs for numerous countries. The administration later said it would implement a 90-day pause on most of its plan, although the 10% universal tariff remains.
"If you can ascribe any conscious strategy to the administration, it seems to be initiating games of chicken, but then immediately backing down," he said.
"Except that no one would choose that strategy on purpose and it seems more likely that there's simply no plan at all," Campbell said.
What happened to foreign students at Mass. colleges?
Several Massachusetts institutions have seen student visas and statuses revoked. Among them have been: Northeastern University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Boston, Berklee College of Music, Harvard University, Clark University, Bentley University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Three of the nine of those who had their SEVIS records terminated at Tufts University have been returned to active status as of the late morning, according to Patrick Collins, Tufts spokesperson.
All reactivated records are F-1 student visa holders who are alumni on post-completion. The institution is continuing to monitor developments, Collins said.
Clark University said it is "cautiously optimistic" about the announcement from the federal government. At the same time, the institution is still "very concerned about our international students."
"At this point, it appears that a few of our students' SEVIS records have been reinstated, but not all. We are looking into the details and hope to learn more over the next few days. Our international students are an integral part of our Clark community. We stand firmly committed to their continued success here," said John LaBrie, dean and associate provost for graduate studies and international programs at Clark.
The Office of Global Affairs at UMass Amherst is "assessing the impact on the UMass community and will advise students on a case-by-case basis as appropriate," according to Melinda Rose, university spokesperson.
There is "a long way ahead" for international students, said Harvard sophomore Abdullah Shahid Sial, who is from Pakistan.
While he is optimistic about the reversal, he said he doesn't know if it will significantly affect Harvard international students.
This is because the Department of Homeland Security ordered Harvard to submit detailed records of "illegal and violent activities" by foreign student visa holders before the end of the month, or it would lose a key certification that allows international students to attend Harvard.
About 27% of Harvard's undergraduate and graduate students are international, according to 2024 to 2025 data .
" I will definitely take this as a win along the way, a win for international students at large," Shahid Sial said.
"Maybe not for Harvard international students, but it's definitely for international schools at large," he said.
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