The Department of Justice announced that the Trump administration will reverse their decision to cancel 1,500 student visas. It remains unclear how many of these students are still in the country, or what their next steps will be.
Over 100 lawsuits have been filed from students, universities and advocacy organizations claiming the visa terminations were without sufficient cause.
The student visas were abruptly terminated beginning in March. California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press release two weeks ago the revocations impacted “nearly 100 students across the California State University system, University of California campuses, and Stanford University.”
The reason behind many revocations was ambiguous or due to minor legal infractions, as well as possibly due to engaging in pro-Palestinian protests or expressing pro-Palestinian views on social media.
USC is home to more than 17,000 international students, the most of any California university. So far there have been no reports of students at USC being deported or having their visas revoked.
“The university does not disclose information about the status of individual student visas,” the university said in a statement provided to Annenberg Media.
Students are typically notified about the change in their legal status via designated university offices. At USC, it’s the Office of International Services (OIS).
Elizabeth D. Kurlan, an attorney for the Justice Department, shared during a hearing in the Northern District of California in Oakland that ICE will no longer terminate immigration statuses solely based on information from the National Crime Information Center, a computerized database of criminal history, which had led to some recent Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, also known as SEVIS record terminations.