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Trump Administration Restores SEVIS Records for International Students

Legal

Business Honor
26 April, 2025

Trump administration reinstates SEVIS records as ICE develops new guidelines for student status terminations.

The Trump administration declared restoring the legal status to international students whose SEVIS records were canceled in recent weeks. The news was provided by Justice Department attorney Elizabeth D. Kurlan in a hearing at the Northern District of California in Oakland.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will reactivate the SEVIS records, says Kurlan, while a new policy structure is created to regulate status terminations. The restoration follows recent moves in which the records and visas of hundreds of thousands of foreign students were canceled.

Kurlan made it clear that ICE maintains jurisdiction to cancel SEVIS records for students who cannot continue their nonimmigrant status or whose activity could make them removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Nevertheless, henceforth ICE will no longer cancel statuses exclusively upon discovery from the National Crime Information Center.

Immigration lawyers and university administrators reported that most students observed their SEVIS records being reinstated on Thursday afternoon. The University of California, Berkeley, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, among others, confirmed that a number of the affected students had their records reinstated. Yet, not all the students have been reinstated, and some still experience uncertainties over their visa status.

While the revival of SEVIS records is good news for most, immigration specialists point out that the earlier record termination can still affect students' future immigration petitions. Legal representatives are urging students to request further clarification about their immigration status to meet U.S. requirements.

The Justice Department has announced that additional policy guidance from ICE is in the works to better organize future status terminations under immigration law.