As Trump admin restores WPI foreign student visas, ACLU lawyer urges caution
Gilles Bissonnette, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Hampshire, is one of four ACLU affiliates in New England representing five international students in a class action lawsuit against the federal government.
The lawsuit, which was filed this month in New Hampshire federal court, seeks to reinstate the student's terminated F-1 student visas, which would allow them to continue their studies, according to a written statement from the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire.
Of the five students in the lawsuit, two of them, Hangrui Zhang and Haoyang An, both from China — are students at WPI in Worcester, according to the lawsuit.
The other students are Linkhith Babu Gorrela, Thanuj Kumar Gummadavelli, and Manikanta Pasula, who are all from India and students at Rivier University in New Hampshire.
On Friday, the Department of Justice announced it would reverse the termination of visa registrations for international students studying in the United States, according to Politico.
In court, the department said the records that were terminated from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS) would be restored, according to the BBC.
The SEVIS database is a web-based system used by the Department of Homeland Security to:
Maintain information on schools certified by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program
F-1 and M-1 students who come to the U.S. to attend those schools
Department of State-designated Exchange Visitor Program sponsors
J-1 visa Exchange Visitor Program participants
All five students named in the class action lawsuit have been added back to the database, Bissonnette told MassLive on Monday.
The lawyer, however, wants the government to assure him that the students will not see their statuses revoked again.
'I think what we remained concerned about and we want to make sure, there are protections for a scenario in which the students have the rug pulled out from them in the future,' Bissonnette said. 'We need to make sure in these cases that these students are protected going forward.'
The revocations in April took place without any notice or legal explanation, Bissonnette said. He told MasLive on Monday that the government has not filed anything in the federal court about the revocations.
He said his team and the government will meet in the coming days. He is looking for the government to prove in court that the students now have their F-1 student statuses again and that the government will not consider them terminated.
'That would provide significant protections and assurances to these students that this won't happen again,' Bissonnette said.
If the government fails to provide the assurances and protections, he said his team will move the lawsuit forward.
The defendants in the case are the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Boston Field Office; the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Manchester Sub-Field Office; DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
The status terminations disrupted the students' education in the middle of a semester as they worked to achieve degrees and followed all the rules required of them, according to the ACLU. Gorrela's graduation date for his master's program, for example, is May 20.
With terminated F-1 statuses, the students are also now at risk of detention and deportation, the ACLU wrote.
None of the five students have been detained as of April 28, but they are fearful for their lives, Bissonnette said.
'Not only do they live for several weeks in fear of possibly having their studies or training impacted — they live in fear now of 'Is ICE going to come knocking on my door?'' Bissonnette said. 'All we're asking for is just for the government to confirm that they maintain student status. It's pretty simple.'
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Read the original article on MassLive.
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