The American Civil Liberties Union’s Indiana branch announced Tuesday it had filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over the termination of seven international student legal statuses.
The ACLU’s complaint is on behalf of seven students attending college in Indiana, including one at IU Indianapolis. It asks the U.S. District Court of Southern Indiana to enter a preliminary injunction that would prevent the detainment of the plaintiffs and reinstate the students’ statuses. The ACLU said that since the students were not allowed to challenge the terminations, the DHS violated their Fifth Amendment due process rights.
The DHS ended the plaintiff’s F-1 student status by terminating their Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems record, a database that tracks compliance of nonimmigrant students with their F-1 student status.
Court documents claimed that even if a visa is revoked, the U.S. was not authorized to terminate the plaintiffs’ SEVIS records. The database is used by school officials to update students' addresses, courseload, enrollment and employment to ensure status compliance.
According to the lawsuit, SEVIS termination must be based on a student's failure to maintain their F-1 status, whether it be by voluntarily withdrawing, failing to maintain a full course of study or working without authorization.
The DHS can terminate a student’s F-1 status by terminating a SEVIS record, though they are historically ended by designated school officials.
The ACLU claimed that the students were “in full compliance with the terms of their F-1 status and have not engaged in any conduct justifying termination of the status”.
The Associated Press reported that students who have had visas revoked in the past have been able to keep their legal residency status — but that changes when the SEVIS records are wiped clean. Without legal status, students may be at risk of detention or deportation.
A judge recently permitted the Trump administration to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia University who helped to lead protests on the university’s campus against the Israel-Hamas war.
The lawsuit said that once students enter the U.S. on an F-1 visa, they are granted student legal status and permitted to remain in the United States for the duration of status as long as they meet its requirements.
One of the plaintiffs is a graduate student and Chinese citizen studying at IU Indianapolis. According to the complaint, the student had never committed any criminal offenses and remained in good standing with the university.
The student learned of the termination of her student visa status April 11 in an email from the Director of International Student and School Services at IUI.
According to the email, the DHS listed the cause of her visa termination to be “failing to maintain status”.
The complaint said the student had not received notice of the termination of her visa from the DHS or any other agency, nor further explanation or information regarding its cancelation.
The student previously had her visa revoked after dropping below the required credit hours per semester necessary when she changed her major, but it was reinstated in 2018 until she completed her undergraduate studies in 2022. She has had her student visa status since January last year for her graduate studies.
Five other Chinese nationals are listed on the lawsuit, all attending Purdue. The seventh plaintiff is a Nigerian citizen and Ph.D. student at the University of Notre Dame set to graduate in May.
Two of the plaintiffs had no criminal history. Several had deferred speeding tickets, charges that were dismissed or misdemeanors that resulted in fines.
One plaintiff studying at Purdue was charged with domestic violence in Illinois in 2022, though the case was dismissed, according to the complaint. An international student at Notre Dame was charged with domestic battery in 2024, but the charge was dismissed.
Over 700 international student visas were revoked nationwide, including an unknown number at IU.
In a letter obtained by the IDS, IU Vice President of International Affairs Hannah Buxbaum told campus leaders that the government did not inform IU nor the students when their records ae removed. Indiana Public Media first reported the document’s contents.
The letter claimed that IU was scanning the SEVIS database daily to inform affected students. It said that students are being provided individualized counseling and that the visa revocation does not affect student enrollment at IU.
According to the report, some revocations were for low-level criminal infractions, such as speeding tickets or charges that were later dropped, and others, such as the ones at IU, had “no indication of the reason for the revocation”.
It said less than 10 IU students, some of whom had already completed their degrees, have been impacted.
