Oregon Public Broadcasting's Tiffany Camhi co-authored this report.
At least 50 international students in Washington and Oregon whose immigration status was abruptly removed from a federal database will have their standing restored.
That’s after the Justice Department reversed course on Friday following dozens of lawsuits and court restraining orders over the removals, which began earlier this month and impacted thousands of students.
All three Portland State University students whose visas were revoked have now had them reinstated, according to the university.
The University of Oregon reports that three out of its four affected students have also had their visas reactivated, while the remaining student has secured alternative means to legally stay in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Oregon State University states that at least seven of the 13 students who lost their visas have been reinstated, and none have been disenrolled as a result of the cancellations.
State Department officials initially accused affected students of having broken the law and said they could be subject to visa revocation and deportation.
But lawyers previously told KUOW that many students’ information was in law enforcement databases due to being a crime victim or cooperating with a police investigation, and that of those accused of a legal infraction, many had those charges dropped.
KUOW reached out to State Department officials but they declined to comment.
Kate Hellmann, the director of international student and scholar services at Washington State University, told KUOW that impacted students were effectively left without legal status, resulting in turmoil.
Attorney Jay Gairson, who represents 16 students, including some from Washington universities, said two have already been disenrolled as a result of the visa removals. He also knows of one student who didn’t take on a lawyer because they left the country following the erasures.
Gairson is one of many lawyers who have sued over the status removals, and attributes the administration’s backtracking to “the sheer amount of litigation that has been filed nationwide.”
Despite the Justice Department’s rollback, Gairson said there’s still a lingering problem for these students.
“[There are] students who are going to end up missing this quarter or semester because they were required to withdraw,” he said.
“Those students have now potentially fallen below the required amount of credits they’re supposed to take per quarter, and as a result, the government may try to require them to file for reinstatement of [immigration] status with.” he said.
Some schools say they have global studies programs students can participate in or that they’ll try to accommodate students from abroad, but that may not extend to everyone.
Regardless, Gairson is concerned blame will be shifted onto students and universities targeted by the Trump administration, instead of the confusion the federal government has created, he said.
“People depend on the government being accurate and consistent in what it tells people the rules are,” he said. “And when the government breaks those rules…the people shouldn’t be punished because they did what — in the past — they’ve been told to do in that circumstance by the government.”
SEVIS, or the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, is a database the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses to track visa information for educational exchange visitors and international students.
In a court declaration last week, Andre Watson, a senior official in the National Security Division of Homeland Security Investigations, wrote that even if his office eliminated someone’s SEVIS record, that doesn’t terminate that student’s nonimmigrant status in the U.S.
“We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation,” said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Trica McLaughlin in a statement to KUOW. “What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who have not had their visa revoked.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they’re working on a different policy under which some student visas could be revoked, Politico reports.
Earlier this year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. has revoked hundreds of visas as part of a crackdown on student activists who opposed Israel’s war in Gaza.
Rubio has also ordered that visa applicants’ social media be scrutinized for anti-Israel rhetoric, and more recently announced that he was taking steps to revoke visas held by South Sudanese passport holders.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.