MLFA applauds the fearless attorneys, especially the ACLU and dozens of private immigration litigators, who quickly took ICE to federal court across the country to protect the civil rights of foreign students studying in the U.S. Time and time again, federal judges ruled the government’s actions in canceling students’ SEVIS records were illegal, and ICE was forced to reverse course after losing in court over and over again. On Thursday, April 25, 2025, just as it had given no warning when it illegally terminated thousands of F-1 students’ SEVIS records, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement quietly started reactivating them.
The Department of Justice announced the following in open court in several hearings across the U.S. on Friday, “ICE will not be terminating statuses solely based on findings in the National Crime Information Center, a computerized index that includes criminal history information, that resulted in some of the recent SEVIS record terminations.”
DON’T BE FOOLED! The fight for F-1 students’ constitutional rights is not over – it’s just beginning. At those same hearings, ICE also announced it is developing a policy and framework to allow it to terminate SEVIS records in the future. MLFA and its coalition of attorneys stand with these scholars to ensure international students will know what to do if ICE unjustly targets them.
