Politico: Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations of foreign students' U.S. visa registrations

[Dennis Donovan]

Politico - Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations of foreign students’ U.S. visa registrations

DOJ announced the reversal in federal court after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judge.

By Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein

04/25/2025 11:23 AM EDT

The Trump administration has restored the student visa registrations of thousands of foreign students studying in the United States who had minor — and often dismissed — legal infractions.

The Justice Department announced the wholesale reversal in federal court Friday after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges who deemed the mass termination of students from a federal database — used by universities and the federal government to track foreign students in the U.S. — as flagrantly illegal.

The terminations caused concern and even panic for thousands of students who feared the possibility they had lost their legal immigration status and could be quickly deported. Many who sued over the move said their schools had also blocked their ability to continue taking classes or conducting research, sometimes just weeks before graduation.

Judges also expressed frustration with the seemingly arbitrary moves and the unwillingness of government lawyers to say whether the students could continue to attend classes or needed to leave the country immediately.

/snip

[al bupp]

1. Was it incompetence, malevolence or both?

I say once facilitated the other.

[Ms. Toad]

2. Kick n/t