Student Visas Revoked: Lawsuits, Court Rulings, and Reversal

The lawsuits over the Trump administration’s 2025 revocation of international student visas number more than 100, and in over 50 of them judges have blocked the government’s actions, ordered SEVIS records reinstated, or found the administration likely exceeded its legal authority.¹ A federal judge in California issued a nationwide preliminary injunction in May 2025; a federal judge in Massachusetts declared the deportation of noncitizens for political speech unconstitutional in January 2026; and the government partially reversed its own policy after weeks of losing in court. Several major cases remain active into 2026.

What the Government Did

Two federal agencies acted, and the difference between what each did became the fulcrum of the litigation. Starting in March 2025, the State Department revoked more than 6,000 international student visas over the course of the year, while Immigration and Customs Enforcement separately terminated roughly 4,700 students’ records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the database that tracks whether an international student is maintaining lawful status.²³ By April 17, more than 210 colleges and universities had identified over 1,400 students and recent graduates whose status had been changed or terminated.¹

Under longstanding immigration law, a visa and immigration status are different things. A visa is a travel document; a student can remain in lawful status after a visa expires or is revoked, as long as they continue meeting the conditions of their stay, such as full-time enrollment.⁴ Critics argued ICE effectively collapsed that distinction by terminating SEVIS records based on visa revocations alone, stripping students of legal status without any individualized finding they had broken the terms of their stay.

The Grounds the Administration Cited

The government offered several justifications. The first wave of SEVIS terminations targeted students flagged through the National Crime Information Center database, many of whom had only misdemeanor charges or dismissed cases.⁵ The State Department attributed roughly 4,000 of its visa revocations to “law violations” including alleged assault, burglary, driving under the influence, and visa overstays; another 200 to 300 were attributed to allegations of supporting terrorist activities.³

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that students engaged in pro-Palestinian activism could face visa revocation for allegedly undermining U.S. foreign policy.² The department cited its discretionary power under the Immigration and Nationality Act to revoke visas when a person’s presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” and pointed to a 2024 Supreme Court ruling affirming that Congress gave the Secretary of State broad authority to revoke visas “at any time, for what he deems to be good and sufficient cause.”⁶

On June 4, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation targeting Harvard University specifically, directing the Secretary of State to consider revoking F, M, and J visas held by Harvard students. The White House accused Harvard of being an untrustworthy steward of international student programs, citing over $150 million in funding from China, alleged failures to report foreign students’ illegal activities, and what the administration characterized as a refusal to address antisemitic incidents on campus.⁷

What the Lawsuits Argued

Suits came from individual students, ACLU affiliates, higher education organizations, and universities. They converged on the same core theory: ICE lacked statutory authority to terminate SEVIS records en masse; the terminations were arbitrary and violated due process because students got no notice or chance to respond; and the coordinated State Department and DHS actions should be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act.⁸

The Rulings That Shaped the Outcome

Doe v. Bondi (Georgia)

The lead case, Jane Doe 1 v. Bondi, was filed April 11, 2025, in the Northern District of Georgia on behalf of 133 international students from Georgia, Louisiana, Arizona, Texas, and New York.⁹¹⁰ On April 18, Judge Victoria Marie Calvert granted a temporary restraining order requiring the government to reinstate all 133 plaintiffs’ SEVIS records and student status, retroactive to March 31, 2025. She found the students faced “irreparable harm” and were likely to succeed in showing the government overstepped its authority and violated due process by providing no notice.¹¹ The docket shows the case was terminated on July 1, 2025.¹²

Pasula v. DHS (New Hampshire)

On April 18, four ACLU affiliates and the law firm Shaheen & Gordon filed a class action in the District of New Hampshire on behalf of over 100 students in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico, alleging DHS terminated F-1 status without notice or a meaningful opportunity to respond.¹³ The case was settled and dismissed by stipulation in August 2025.¹⁴

Iowa and Oregon

Four University of Iowa students sued in the Southern District of Iowa after ICE terminated their SEVIS records on April 10, 2025, without explanation. On April 24, the court issued a temporary restraining order restoring their status and barring DHS from initiating deportation proceedings while the case was pending.¹⁵ They were later named as Sri Chaitanya Krishna Akondy, Prasoon Kumar, Songli Cai, and Haoran Yang.¹⁶

In Oregon, a Ph.D. student at Oregon State named Aaron Ortega Gonzalez and a master’s student at the University of Oregon sued after their statuses were revoked without notification.¹⁷ On May 9, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane ordered their legal statuses restored and required immigration authorities to give 15 days’ notice before making any future changes, saying he found it “impossible to trust” the government would not terminate their statuses again without a court mandate.¹⁸

Not every court agreed. In the Southern District of Indiana, Judge James Patrick Hanlon denied the ACLU of Indiana’s request for a temporary restraining order for seven students, finding they had “not demonstrated irreparable harm to warrant the extraordinary exercise of judicial power,” while acknowledging the “turmoil” caused by the “sudden and unexpected” terminations.¹⁹

The Nationwide Injunction (California)

The single broadest order came on May 22, 2025, when U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of the Northern District of California issued a nationwide preliminary injunction barring the federal government from arresting international students or revoking their visas while the case remained in litigation. Judge White wrote that government officials had “uniformly wreaked havoc” and “likely exceeded their authority and acted arbitrarily and capriciously.”²⁰ He found that a SEVIS termination “effectively terminates a student’s legal status,” rejecting ICE’s own contrary argument in other litigation.⁴

Presidents’ Alliance Case (Massachusetts)

The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration filed a separate challenge in the District of Massachusetts attacking the policies at a systemic level. Judge Patti Saris rejected the government’s motion to dismiss, ruling the administration’s actions were subject to judicial review and that the case was not moot despite the partial SEVIS reversal, because the challenged policies could “reasonably recur.”²¹ On March 20, 2026, the court allowed core claims to proceed, including challenges to the State Department’s policy of revoking visas based on database matches without individualized assessment, DHS’s policy of terminating SEVIS records based on those revocations, and ICE’s policy guidance authorizing terminations without notice-and-comment rulemaking.²²

AAUP v. Rubio

The American Association of University Professors, with campus chapters at Harvard, NYU, and Rutgers, and the Middle East Studies Association, filed AAUP v. Rubio in the District of Massachusetts on March 25, 2025, focused on whether the government could deport noncitizens based on political speech. Judge William G. Young denied the government’s motion to dismiss on April 29, ruled on September 30 that noncitizens hold the same free speech rights as citizens, and on January 22, 2026, declared the administration’s practice of deporting noncitizens based on political speech unlawful and a violation of the First Amendment. He further ruled that future adverse immigration actions against noncitizens who were AAUP or MESA members during the litigation would be “presumed retaliatory” unless the government provided clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.²³

Harvard v. DHS

After the June 4 proclamation, Harvard sued. U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs granted two preliminary injunctions, including one on June 23, 2025, that specifically blocked the proclamation. She found it lacked “legitimate grounding” and was unlikely to survive constitutional scrutiny. The administration appealed to the First Circuit on June 27, and on August 8 moved to dismiss the underlying lawsuit, arguing its stipulation to stop enforcing an earlier revocation of Harvard’s student visa program certification rendered part of the case moot while defending the proclamation. Both injunctions remained in effect as of mid-2025.²⁴

The Öztürk Case

The most prominent individual case involved Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts Ph.D. student in child development. On March 25, 2025, plainclothes ICE agents detained her in Somerville, Massachusetts. The government later acknowledged the detention was connected to a pro-Palestinian op-ed she had co-authored in the Tufts Daily. She was moved from Massachusetts to Vermont and then to a Louisiana detention facility, spending 45 days in custody before a Vermont district court ordered her release on bail on May 9.²⁵²⁶ On December 5, 2025, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled her SEVIS record had been wrongfully terminated and ordered it reinstated. On January 29, 2026, Immigration Judge Roopal Patel terminated the removal proceedings against her, finding DHS had failed to meet its burden of proving she was removable.²⁷ The government retains the right to appeal to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

The Government’s Partial Reversal and New Policy

Under the weight of court orders, the administration partially reversed. On April 25, 2025, the Department of Justice announced that ICE would reinstate SEVIS records for students whose terminations had been based on minor or dismissed criminal infractions, and would no longer terminate records “solely based on” NCIC findings while a new policy was developed.⁵ The reversal did not cover students whose visas the State Department had revoked on national security or foreign policy grounds, and the State Department did not confirm any of its own revocations were being reversed.²

A day later, on April 26, ICE circulated an internal notice with new criteria for SEVIS terminations going forward. The policy allows terminations for exceeding unemployment limits during Optional Practical Training, gaps in immigration status, and immediate visa revocations by the State Department. It sets a lower evidentiary bar, permitting terminations based on “objective” evidence without requiring “substantial or clear and convincing evidence,” and does not require notifying students or their schools before terminating a record.²⁸ The administration also expanded vetting, including a June 2025 requirement that student visa applicants provide access to their social media accounts so consular officers could screen for “hostile attitudes” toward the United States.³

Where Things Stand

Several cases are on appeal. The administration appealed the Harvard injunction to the First Circuit in June 2025, and appealed rulings in the Öztürk case to the Second Circuit, where oral arguments were held in September 2025.²⁵ A related D.C. Circuit ruling, RAICES v. Mullin, held on April 24, 2026, that the Immigration and Nationality Act provides “sole and exclusive” procedures for removing people from the United States and that the president’s authority to suspend “entry” does not empower the executive to create summary expulsion procedures for people already present. That case dealt with removal authority more broadly rather than student visas, but its reasoning reinforced the framework student plaintiffs have been invoking.²⁹

Multiple cases remain active in early 2026. The Presidents’ Alliance lawsuit is proceeding to the merits after surviving the government’s motion to dismiss in March 2026.³⁰ The Harvard litigation continues, with the university filing an opposition to the government’s motion to dismiss in September 2025 and a response brief in January 2026.³¹ Judge White’s nationwide preliminary injunction still bars the government from arresting students or re-revoking their SEVIS records.⁴

1
ACLU of New Hampshire. ACLU Files Class Action Lawsuit Challenging Terminated Student Status
2
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3
Higher Ed Dive. State Department Revoked 6,000 Student Visas
4
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8
Bloomberg Law. Student Visa Revocations ICE Policy Targeted in Updated Lawsuit
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ACLU of Georgia. Temporary Restraining Order Granted Student Visa Revocation Case Doe v. Bondi
10
CNN. International Students Immigration Lawsuits Visas
11
Higher Ed Dive. 133 Foreign Students Legal Status
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CourtListener. Jane Doe 1 v. Bondi
13
ACLU of Maine. ACLU of Maine Others File Class Action Challenging Status Terminations
14
ACLU of New Hampshire. Pasula v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security, et al.
15
The Daily Iowan. Federal Court Orders to Restore UI International Students Visas
16
News From the States. UI Students Identify Themselves in Case Against Homeland Security
17
KPTV. Lawsuit Filed Against Trump Administration After Oregon State Students Visa Revoked
18
OPB. Federal Judge Ruling Oregon Students Visas
19
Indianapolis Star. Judge Will Not Grant Temporary Protection for Students Suing DHS
20
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21
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22
Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. SEVIS Litigation
23
Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Visa Revocation Litigation
24
The Harvard Crimson. DHS Moves Dismiss
25
ACLU. Immigration Judge Terminates Removal Proceedings Against Child Development Scholar Rumeysa Ozturk
26
The New York Times. Immigration Judge Tufts Student Rumeysa Ozturk
27
Columbia Spectator. Immigration Judge Halts Deportation of Rumeysa Ozturk Over Pro-Palestinian Op-Ed
28
Immigration Policy Tracking Project. ICE Issues SEVIS Notice Policy Regarding Termination of Records
29
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. RAICES v. Mullin, No. 25-5243
30
Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. Presidents Alliance and AICUM Applaud Court Decision Allowing Lawsuit to Proceed
31
Harvard University. International Student Visas