Legal status restored but uncertainty remains for 6 MTSU international students
"As of today, the six MTSU students have had their status restored, and the university has been notifying those students," university spokesman Jimmy Hart told The Daily News Journal April 29.
Hart, however, said conditions remain unclear if the six international students can attend classes and participate in campus activities because "legal status and visas are two different things."
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Students' legal status to be in the U.S. is tracked in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or (SEVIS) the web-based system used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to maintain information on nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors.
"If their visas are actually revoked, then they are not in the country legally, and thus risk arrest and deportation if they haven't left the country," Hart said. "If they've returned to their home country, they need an active visa to return. But we don't have access to their visa status."
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Universities have access to the SEVIS system to keep them updated on students' legal status to be in the U.S.
The Commercial Appeal in Memphis included a further explanation of the issue from Casey Bryant, the executive director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights, a Memphis-based nonprofit law firm that represents immigrants.
The government's termination of SEVIS records isn't a formal revocation of a visa, but it does remove the mechanism by which the school honors a visa, Bryant said in an April 18 article in The Commercial Appeal.
The University of Memphis confirmed that one of five students whose SEVIS records were previously terminated had been reinstated, according to a university spokesperson, the Commercial Appeal also reported.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported on April 25 that the SEVIS statuses of nine international students at UT-Knoxville had been restored after the Trump administration terminated them without warning earlier in April like others around the country.
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A USA Today article reported April 25 a Trump administration attorney said the federal government would reverse course to restore the terminated immigration statuses for thousands of international students who were stripped of their visas this spring.
The Justice Department announced the decision in a filing on April 25 in U.S. district court in Massachusetts, according to the article.
"Mark Sauter, an assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, submitted a document that said Immigration and Customs Enforcement was developing a policy to terminate SEVIS records," the article said. "But the registrations will remain active or be reactivated until that system is developed."
The previous visa terminations sparked more than 100 lawsuits from students who feared immediate deportation, the article said.
The Association of International Educators (also known as NAFSA), tallied roughly 1,400 revocations, USA Today previously reported in April.
A visa allows entry into a country whereas status describes their legal standing while here, said Hart, the MTSU spokesmans.
"Any student that has returned to their home country will require an active visa before they are eligible for reentry into the United States, but we are not aware of the current state of these student visas," Hart said.
Hart said professors are helping the six students.
"Their professors worked directly with some of the affected students, but the university is not always aware of what accommodations were made for individual students," Hart said. "We do know that some professors allowed their students to complete work remotely."
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Legal status in the U.S. should mean international students can attend classes and participate in campus activities, MTSU Provost Mark Byrnes suggested to The Daily News Journal April 30.
Byrnes on April 10 informed the MTSU Student Government Association (SGA) leaders about the "sketchy" information available from the federal government involving the impacted six international students, according to The Tennessean.
'These are international students whose visas have been revoked, so they are supposed to be going home, and if they don't, then they're in violation," Byrnes told the SGA leaders.
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Reach reporter Scott Broden with news tips or questions by emailing him at sbroden@dnj.com. To support his work with The Daily News Journal, sign up for a digital subscription.
This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Legal status of 6 MTSU international students restored by Trump admin
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