US Judge halts Trump-era crackdown on international students, blocks mass visa terminations

In a major relief for thousands of international students across the United States, a federal judge in California on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from terminating their legal status while a lawsuit challenging earlier terminations remains pending.

The nationwide injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland, prohibits the government from arresting, detaining, or relocating students solely based on their visa status until the case is resolved. Students may still face arrest for unrelated legal violations, and visa status can still be revoked if a student is convicted of a violent felony with a prison sentence exceeding one year, according to the Associated Press.

Judge White, a George W. Bush appointee, took the unusual step of extending protections beyond the original plaintiffs, noting that the government’s actions had "wreaked havoc" not only on those who sued but on nonimmigrant students across the country. His ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by nearly two dozen international students whose legal status was abruptly revoked by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in early April.

According to court documents, more than 4,700 students had their permission to study in the U.S. cancelled this spring with little warning or explanation. The Department of Homeland Security said it had cross-checked student names with an FBI-run database of suspects and individuals with arrest records, even those never formally charged or whose charges were dropped.

While ICE has since begun reinstating legal status for many students and mailing out “status reactivation letters,” Judge White said those steps were not enough. He pointed out that the original visa revocations remain in government records, potentially harming students’ ability to obtain future visas or switch immigration status. “There is no guarantee they won’t have their legal status revoked again on a whim,” White wrote.

The court also criticised the administration’s shifting approach to enforcement. “It is unclear how this game of whack-a-mole will end unless Defendants are enjoined from skirting their own mandatory regulations,” White noted.

Meanwhile, the US government has also revoked Harvard's authority to enrol international students. The decision, announced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Thursday, strips Harvard of its Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification, which is essential for issuing visa documents to foreign nationals.

The controversy comes amid wider public disapproval of visa crackdowns tied to political expression.