Trump Is Trying to Deport Students Who Show Up in a ‘Criminal Records Check.’ But Many Have Never Been Convicted
What began with Mahmoud Khalil has now expanded into widespread immigration status revocations with no explanation and little apparent recourse.
The Trump administration has expanded the scope of its deportation assault on international students. What began as targeting students for their affiliation with anti-war and pro-Palestine protests has rapidly escalated to an effort to deport foreign students en masse – with no clear reason at all.
Hundreds of international students across the country have either had their residency statuses unilaterally and without warning revoked in recent days or fear being next. Those facing revocation are often finding out not from the government, but from university officials. And many are unsure why their status is being revoked in the first place.
While students – such as Mahmoud Khalil – in recent weeks have been targeted for, in the Trump administration’s eyes, holding "potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences" for the US, the government is now drawing upon a broader justification to deport students. The authority is, like the foreign policy justification, part of the Immigration and Nationality Act, but a different portion: Section 237 (a)(1)(C)(i), which makes someone deportable “for failing to maintain the nonimmigrant status in which they were admitted, or to comply with the conditions of that status.”
While students are not being told explicitly why their statuses are being revoked, some are provided some general explanation of being “identified in criminal records check.”
But in many cases, according to students affected, immigration lawyers, and school officials, the crimes amount to minor traffic violations, or simply having a case file that exists – even if it was expunged. Or nothing at all.
‘Feels AI or Computer-Driven’
A school official who deals with student visa statuses at one university told Zeteo that they’ve now had three status revocations – with all three students saying they have no criminal or arrest record.
One immigration lawyer told Zeteo that a client they are working with was notified by the government of their revocation. But, they added, the client has no criminal record at all, and the revocation seemed like it was simply an “error.” They have reached out to the Department of Homeland Security through the student’s school and are still waiting for an update.
The lawyer said this is not the first they’ve heard of such a case. For example, a Chinese student at Dartmouth College with no criminal record had his visa status revoked for no apparent reason last week; the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire is now suing the government on his behalf.
“It really feels AI or computer-driven, like someone wrote a program, like, okay if A, then B,” Ohio-based immigration lawyer Jath Shao told Zeteo. “It doesn't feel like there's a human element to this.”
Shao has clients who may have been arrested but not convicted and who have had their statuses revoked, including one who was a domestic violence victim who was part of a dual arrest – a situation in which officers arrest both parties involved. Shao’s client was never charged with a crime.
“It's just crazy, because anyone who's ever been arrested is who they're going for,” Shao said. “Not even convicted, or some people still have live cases, they could still be found innocent; some people were found innocent, or the case was dismissed. But since they were arrested, I guess they fall under whatever criteria” the government is making these decisions on.
The State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to requests for comment.
‘Fear and Chaos at It’s Finest’
Even if a student has a criminal record, that does not necessarily mean they can be deported, according to legal experts.
It’s a lot easier for the government to revoke someone’s visa – the entry document allowing someone to enter the country – than it is to revoke someone’s immigration status, which allows someone to stay in the US.
To maintain one’s status, a student has to fulfill certain requirements, like obeying specific laws of a certain severity, maintaining sufficient class enrollment or documentation, or following work restrictions.
The threshold for a nonimmigrant’s “failure to maintain status” with regard to criminal activity is higher than the types of violations students think their statuses are being revoked for. US law states that someone’s conviction “for a crime of violence for which a sentence of more than one-year imprisonment may be imposed constitutes a failure to maintain status.”
Despite the higher threshold for criminality to be cited as justification for revocation, it appears the government is attempting to haphazardly use the authority anyhow.
One individual who spoke with Zeteo says they received an email from their midwestern state school notifying them that their status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System – SEVIS, a database where residency statuses of foreign students are managed – was terminated, effective immediately, with no clear reason why.
Their school told them that they themselves were not notified by the government of the termination, but had found it as they were checking the SEVIS database.
“Are they going to be coming after naturalized citizens eventually?”
-A student whose status was revoked
More than a week later, the student still has not been notified by the government of their status termination, nor why it occurred. The student suspects it might be because of a misdemeanor DUI from two years ago.
School officials told the student that those with an F-1 student visa with a terminated SEVIS record "must depart the U.S. immediately,” and that there is no grace period. They advised them to cease their employment and depart the country as soon as possible.
“First they threatened the universities, then they came after the student protesters and then students with misdemeanors. All of these efforts seem very organized, and I wonder what else is to come,” the student said. “Are they going to be coming after naturalized citizens eventually? Time will tell. Fear and chaos at its finest.”
Zeteo also learned of at least one case of a student who had their status revoked and had a minor traffic violation a half-decade ago, but their record had been expunged in the time since. Still, the case file shows up in a search, leading some to believe the student’s status was revoked simply because of the file’s existence, one that has no details on it regarding any finding of wrongdoing.
‘We Dare You to Support These Students’
The government is facing pushback. On Saturday, a California college student sued the Trump administration for its sweeping termination of student statuses, alleging the renovations are “designed to coerce students…into abandoning their studies and ‘self-deporting’ despite not violating their status.”
The lawsuit added that the administration seems to be “primarily targeting” African, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Asian students, a likelihood affirmed by university officials, students, and attorneys Zeteo has spoken with.
There are otherwise few avenues for students to fight back against their individual revocations – they can file for visa reinstatement or file a lawsuit. But in the atmosphere the Trump administration has cultivated, they face unique challenges.
Reinstatement requires the school’s designated official to contest the reason for termination, which is often a laborious task in and of itself. But according to one senior official at a US research university, the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown may make it even harder. In several revocations they have seen, the government appears to have manually edited the termination reasons – to simply: “Other.” The fear, the administrator said, is that the change is not just perhaps to back away from some of the previous spurious rationale in the face of lawsuits but to make it harder for students to apply for reinstatement.
Schools may be hesitant to recommend reinstatement unless there is a clear reason to believe the termination was due to a clear error, said Tahmina Watson, a Seattle-based immigration attorney working with targeted students. Even if the school greenlit reinstatement, the ambiguity, Watson said, gives the government more ammunition to simply reject the application and maintain the initial decision.
Universities may also have their hands tied because of leadership, or university counsel may be simply trying to figure out the lay of the land, Watson told Zeteo. “Higher education institutions are also worried about their own accreditation being poor, because that's part of the threat that's coming down from the White House,” she said. “There are layers of problems that are stacked against the students,” Watson told Zeteo.
“So the administration is really attacking every level of recourse.”
Filing a lawsuit, meanwhile, requires both funding, and student comfort in potential exposure. Moreover, as immigration lawyer Shao described, Trump’s attacks on law firms he’s deemed oppositional, or universities he has deemed to be insufficiently responding to antisemitism have created a chilling effect. “Maybe that was part of it, you know: ‘We dare you to support these students.’”
If you are a student affected by this or someone who works in or around the US government with relevant information about these developments, please contact me via email or Signal (premthakker.35).
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Read more of Prem’s coverage of Trump’s crackdown on foreign students:
Goddammit, Fuck Trump. He truly is a Nazi and represents the worst parts of American History (like the Confederacy and the Boarding Schools).
Greedy Billionaires: “Let them eat cake”
The Orange Strongman has one goal in mind for his billionaire cronies with the tariff scheme that claims America as a poor victim(sound familiar?) Get rid of income tax and rely on tariffs that insufferably tax the working class It’s bonkers but that’s his read of the “Golden Age” of the Robber barons when the working class severely economically suffered and the wealthy became ultrawealthy To get rid of income tax the Strongman’s first step is to gut the civil service that support ordinary Americans
But this greedy dirtbag of a president doesn’t understand that the economic power of this country lies in WE the People and just like he screwed up the management of the COVID pandemic he’s heading our country into another historic incompetent poorly thought out gambit that has already started destroying our country By far the most selfish greedy narcissistic president America has ever experienced
The arrogance and sense of superiority of the uberwealthy and its Nazi party is absolutely reprehensible, disgraceful, and deplorable Indeed as Marie Antoinette of French nobility demeaningly said to the peasants in the country it led to her beheading by guillotine It was WE the People during the French Revolution that finally said “Enough” And interestingly the Revolution was brought about by a currency crisis and failure brought about by the monarchy
As Musk found out in Wisconsin elections are not for sale So the billionaire class are running into WE the People who say “you don’t run this country” This attempted power grab by the ultrawealthy will not happen because there are too many of us
In 2025 “Let them eat cake” indeed!!! Protest Protest and then Protest some more