A federal judge blasted the Trump administration’s termination of immigration records for thousands of foreign students in the United States as “arbitrary and capricious,” demanding that the government provide detailed explanations as to why and how the records were terminated and what this means for students.
“I think we all agree it was arbitrary and capricious,” Judge Ana Reyes said about the Trump administration’s move to terminate records of foreign students in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database that schools and government agencies used to confirm if foreign students are abiding by the conditions of their stay, during a court hearing for an international student’s case in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
“This was not ideal by any stretch of the imagination,” she continued.
Akshar Patel, a computer science student from India, sued the Trump administration after his SEVIS record was recently terminated based on a speeding ticket from a few years ago. On the heels of the Trump administration’s recent announcement that it is reinstating SEVIS records for some international students whose records had been terminated, Patel sought a preliminary injunction to ensure he can maintain his status and won’t be detained or deported.
“It still boggles my mind that we’re firing tens of thousands of federal workers on no notice and then take 10 to 20 of them to run a bunch of names through a database to see if there are students — if they have a speeding record,” Reyes said.
Reyes, who is overseeing Patel’s case, did not rule on the motion for a preliminary injunction from the bench on Tuesday after hearing from the government that Patel’s legal status as a student has not been terminated and that he’s not facing any immediate threat of deportation. The judge suggested that the plaintiff and the government could come up with language to ensure Patel’s status in the United States.
During the court hearing, Andre Watson, a senior official at the National Security Division of Homeland Security Investigations, explained that Patel was terminated due to a speeding ticket from a few years ago, was one of roughly 6,400 international students who were referred to the State Department after his team checked the records of nearly 1.3 million international students through the National Crime Information Center as part of its Criminal Alien Program initiative, which is aimed at identifying and removing migrants lacking legal status to be in the U.S. who also have criminal records.
The thousands of international students who were referred to the State Department, and subsequently returned to the Department of Homeland Security, including Patel, came up on the NCIC database but did not necessarily have criminal records. Watson did not elaborate on how exactly the government combed through the names to decide whom it flagged.
The judge was highly critical of the administration’s process of terminating these students’ immigration records and visas, taking particular notice of the sweeping nature of the mass terminations.
“After careful consideration for 15 minutes, terminate everybody, right?” the judge questioned as she walked through the government’s process of filtering through students’ records and determining whose records to terminate. “Can you and I agree that nowhere in this entire process has anyone done an individualized determination of any of these individuals before their names were terminated in SEVIS?”
“I mean, no one looked at Mr. Patel’s case and said that, yeah, here’s somebody who should no longer be in the United States, right?” Reyes continued.
Noting that Patel had only received a citation in Texas for reckless driving but was never charged, Reyes said, “You and I both agree that if we deported every single individual in this country who’s been tasked for speeding, there’d be very few people left, and almost all of them would not have driver’s license.”
“You and I both know that Mr. Patel is not a criminal, right?” she said, adding that Patel had even disclosed the speeding ticket in his visa petition. “The United States government had already assessed this speeding ticket and had found it not to be a reason to kick him out of status.”
U.S. attorney Johnny Walker maintained that the SEVIS termination was merely a “red flag” to the school notifying it of the student’s record, saying it is up to the school to terminate his student status.
While Patel, who is scheduled to graduate in a few weeks, has continued to attend classes to finish his degree, lawyers representing other affected international students have said some schools saw it as more than a red flag — thinking this meant their students needed to leave the country.
While declining to rule from the bench after assurances from the government that Patel’s student status is active, the judge criticized the administration’s actions, describing it as an “utter lack of concern for human individuals.”
“Aside from the utter lack of concern for human individuals who we have invited into our country and who have made our communities richer by being students who have contributed to our colleges and who have paid our colleges — the reason I’m concerned and particularly troubled is because those plaintiffs lawyers, like all lawyers, have to get paid, and so now we’ve got thousands of people who are having to pay plaintiff’s attorneys to have litigation, to file briefs, to appear in court, prepare for court, to get the information, and that’s not cheap, right?” Reyes said.
“And all of this could have been avoided if individuals had taken a beat and instead of just rushing things,” she continued.
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