The Trump administration’s policy on international students is changing so quickly, its own lawyers are having trouble keeping up.
News reports on April 25 indicated that the administration would change course on the mass cancellations of legal status for international students. But in a hearing Monday in St. Paul, a Trump administration lawyer told a federal judge that while he understood there was a new policy, he did not know what that new policy was.
“I have not seen the policy so I cannot speak to what its contents are,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bahram Samie told U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan.
Samie said he had learned Monday morning that a new policy was created Sunday evening. He noted that “activity has occurred” regarding reinstatement of many students’ legal status across the country.
But David Wilson, an attorney representing international students, said that it was not clear whether this as-yet-unseen policy would protect his clients.
The exchange took place during a hearing regarding two international students, Rattanand Ratsantiboon, a Thai nursing student at Metro State, and Ziliang Jin, a Chinese geographic and information science student at the University of Minnesota.
Like many international students in Minnesota and across the country, both Ratsantiboon and Jin saw their legal status terminated in recent weeks in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a federal computer system that tracks international students.
According to an Associated Press count, more than 1,200 international students have lost their visa or legal status in recent weeks.
Both Ratsantiboon and Jin’s records showed that their legal status had been terminated following a criminal records check. Ratsantiboon had a gross misdemeanor drunk driving conviction from 2018; Jin had a series of petty misdemeanor traffic infractions, including a speeding ticket and a series of parking violations related to Minnesota winter parking rules.
Typically, international students’ legal status can only be terminated over failures to maintain good standing as a student, or for a crime of violence resulting in imprisonment for more than a year, Wilson argued in court filings.
Federal judges have issued temporary restraining orders for both Ratsantiboon and Jin, ordering Immigration and Customs Enforcement to reinstate their legal status effective to the date that it was terminated. Monday’s hearing was scheduled to discuss whether to extend the temporary restraining orders or turn them into preliminary injunctions.
On Friday, news reports indicated that the Trump administration was changing course on its mass revocations of legal status for international students. But it is not yet clear what the new course will be.
The New York Times quoted Department of Homeland Security officials saying that the agency would restore many students’ status while they developed a new policy. But those students could still have their status revoked in the future.
And the Department of Homeland Security emphasized it had not restored any visas that had been revoked. The visa governs students’ entry into the country, while the SEVIS status determines whether they are legally present in the country after they have arrived.
In a St. Paul courtroom Monday, Samie argued that the reinstatement of many students’ legal status showed that the harm had been mitigated.
But Wilson said that because both students’ status had been reinstated only because a court order mandated the reinstatement, it was not clear whether the statuses would remain in place once those court orders expired. He also said that it was not clear what the new policy would be.
“It’s hard to know which direction this will go,” he said. For example, would the new policy allow for the reinstatement of status if the student had a criminal history? There are “so many variants that could be coming out as we are both sitting here punting as to what it could be,” he said.
Wilson urged Bryan to extend the temporary restraining order for good cause, “because there’s simply a lack of clarity.”
Bryan indicated that he agreed with Wilson on that point. He took the matter under advisement, meaning he will issue a written order later. In the meantime, he urged the two sides to think about what a resolution to their case could look like.
This article was originally published in Sahan Journal. For more information, visit sahanjournal.com.
Imagine being mid-program only to see your SEVIS status terminated over a minor offense, like one student who had a parking ticket and suddenly faced deportation—it’s absurd and alarming.
What really stands out is the sheer uncertainty—students and their legal reps are in limbo, wondering if reinstated statuses will hold or be pulled again when the court orders expire. And it seems like some students are already preemptively packing up, worried this could happen again—even those on OPT hoping to step into U.S. jobs after graduation.
The broader context makes it even more unsettling: strict social-media screenings, attempts to cut off institutions like Harvard, and tougher vetting for Chinese students—all while universities scramble to declare sanctuary policies for students. It’s one thing to care about national security, but voters and students are seeing the line between that and arbitrary policy violence get crossed.