24-04-2025
ICE created visa chaos for WA international students. That should worry everyone
What if someone could flip a switch to mess with your life?
That's what ICE appears to be doing to several international students and recent grads in Washington state, two of whom were in post-graduate training at UW Tacoma. One day a database said they had valid status as students in the United States, and the next day it didn't, because someone with Immigration and Customs Enforcement clicked on a button.
Worryingly, it appears in at least one case that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can't really explain what it was doing when it flipped that switch. The recent grads from UW Tacoma who saw their records changed could be in a similar predicament, though the details of their cases haven't emerged. More cases for students in the region are going forward in Tacoma on Thursday.
International scholars are guests in our region. They add to the accomplishments of our universities and put their education in our hands. They deserve competent and humane treatment from the government agency that manages their legal status in the country. This isn't that.
Even if their treatment doesn't concern you, a government agency that doesn't follow its own rules when deciding any one person's fate sets a dangerous precedent for everyone.
ICE maintains a database of international scholars in the United States with a valid student status. At a hearing in Tacoma on April 17, U.S. District Court Judge David G. Estudillo asked a lawyer representing ICE to explain the agency's decision to change the status of a Seattle-based UW doctoral student in this system.
What was the basis for ICE's action? Was the student, from China, now in the country without legal status? Would he be detained if he didn't leave immediately? Could he continue studying or not?
That a judge had to ask those questions to get the student answers was wild enough. According to his lawyer, Jay Gairson, the student learned through UW that the change could be related to the results of a criminal background check. He has a pending DUI charge from 2023.
A pending charge isn't enough for ICE to end his legal status, Gairson argued. Under U.S. immigration law, there has to be a conviction, the crime must be violent, and it must have a possible prison sentence of over one year. Gairson said not one of those things has happened – nor could they happen – based on the DUI charge. It's a nonviolent offense that's subject to a sentence of 364 days or fewer.
Even wilder were the answers ICE's lawyer, assistant U.S. Attorney Whitney Passmore, gave to the judge. Yes, she said, ICE changed the student's status within its system because of the DUI charge. In a kafkaesque twist, she said ICE was not taking a position on whether the change means he's lost his valid status as a student.
Why? Because ICE's lawyers don't know the answer to that question yet.
So as ICE's lawyers have described it, it sounds like the agency altered official records of a resident's legal status, without following its own rules, and without knowing the consequences of its own actions. That in turn sounds like something from dystopian fiction exploring themes of cruelty and incompetence.
In a temporary order, Estudillo required ICE to restore the UW doctoral student's record. He also forbade the agency from putting the student into removal proceedings based on its earlier decision to terminate the record. The judge will revisit his decision in early May after getting more information from both legal teams.
The details of the cases for the recent grads of UW Tacoma and many of the other students might be different. It might turn out that ICE discovered things about them that fall within the agency's rules for ending their legal status. Based on last week's hearing, it seems like it could take a court hearing to get that information from ICE.
For now, the switch is flipped back for one student.
