Five international college students in Missouri have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the termination of their student registrations by the Department of Homeland Security — a revocation that essentially threatens their ability to legally remain in the United States.
The students believe that prior nonviolent incidents might have triggered DHS to revoke their records in a government database that tracks international students.
An international student in Missouri from Nigeria, for example, had once paid a $50 fine for playing music too loudly.
Another student, also from Nigeria, had once been cited for improperly passing a streetcar and paid a $80.50 fine.
And yet another, from Bangladesh, had been charged with public intoxication but believed that the issue was resolved years ago after he completed six months of probation and 75 hours of community service.
The complaint was filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri by Kansas City immigration attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford, who is representing the students.
A hearing April 24 will determine if a request for a temporary restraining order will be granted, said Sharma-Crawford.
The complaint joins a flurry of similar challenges nationwide.
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, there are more than 1 million international students in the U.S.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association has noted that more than 4,700 international students had records that were canceled, according to reporting by Science.
In a separate case brought in Atlanta, a graduate student from Bangladesh studying at Missouri State University was among 133 international students who had their status restored this week after a temporary restraining order was approved.
The students represented in the local lawsuit involve a range of universities and nationalities.
- A Nigerian student studying computer science at Truman State University.
- A Spanish student at Northwest Missouri State University on a tennis scholarship.
- A Nepal graduate student studying at Southeast Missouri State University.
- A mechanical engineering graduate from Bangladesh who was employed at a Kansas City company as part of his practical training.
- And a Nigerian graduate of the Missouri University of Science and Technology who was employed at a Columbia, Missouri, bank as part of her practical training.
The terminations came “without notice and without cause,” the Missouri suit alleges, and caused immediate and irreparable harm.
“In essence, they took students lawfully here on their student visas and stripped them of their legal status,” the complaint reads. “They did this to create chaos and uncertainty and cause some students to abandon their studies and leave the United States.”
Sharma-Crawford said about 40 such cases have been filed nationwide, challenging the government’s actions targeting international students.
The Missouri complaint is against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security and Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
In early April, thousands of foreign college students began discovering that the Trump administration had terminated their student records, which are tracked within DHS by the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS.
Fear of retaliation among international students
The five Missouri students are anonymous in the lawsuit, citing fear of retaliation or harassment and blacklisting by third parties.
The complaint alleges that the students have lost jobs, health care and their student status and suffered stress from not being able to pay for their rent or basic needs, in addition to upending their career goals.
Homeland Security has not initiated removal proceedings, colloquially referred to as deportation, against any of the students, said Sharma-Crawford.
The lawsuit alleges that DHS terminated the students’ registrations without sufficient notice and opportunity to be heard, a violation of their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Several of the students had previously left the U.S. and reentered without any issues with U.S. Customs and Border Protection after the minor criminal incidents.
In response to similar court challenges, the government has taken what some see as a contradictory stance, emphasizing that it has merely terminated a record in a government tracking database, nothing more.
And yet, some students have then been advised by emails that they must leave the U.S.
For universities, some do not want to risk their own funding by being accused of harboring an immigrant not legally able to study or reside in the U.S.
Requests for comment from several Missouri university offices that oversee international students were not returned.
There is no publicly accessible database to track the status of international students.
But Inside Higher Ed and The Chronicle of Higher Education have been compiling listings, reporting that at least 1,500 students have been affected as of April 21.
The sites note that Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville had 716 international students last fall and 43 recent revocations.
Other regional campuses listed include: Webster University, with 24 students affected; Missouri State University, with six students affected; and Park University, with at least one student affected.
The Missouri complaint also notes that the students’ schools also were not given a rationale for the decisions.
The five students listed in the lawsuit learned of the terminations from their universities, according to the complaint. School officials received emails advising that ICE had terminated the student’s SEVIS registration.
The complaint also details the process that international students use during their studies:
“Foreign students who wish to study in the United States apply to schools which are part of the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (“SEVP”). This program is monitored within the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”). ICE, through SEVP, uses the Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (“SEVIS”), a government database that tracks international students’ compliance with their student visa status. Student visas are commonly referred to as F-1 visas.”
The complaint alleges: “Yet, each Plaintiff, once terminated in the SEVIS system, even wrongfully, would be left without status and their presence becomes immediately unauthorized. Any work authorization for on and/or off campus is immediately terminated, they are unable to re-enter the U.S. on a terminated SEVIS record and they become subject to arrest, detention and deportation.”
Court challenges joined by university pushback
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat, believes that bipartisan leverage might be possible to address unfair targeting of international students.
Davids said some Republicans in the House could be engaged on the issue.
“This is one of those areas where every single state — red states, blue states, it doesn’t matter — they benefit from having robust universities,” Davids said during a town hall hosted by KCUR on April 21.
She added that in some areas with Republican representation the affected universities are “the economic driver of their communities.”
Universities nationwide have been under intense scrutiny by the Trump administration.
Some have seen grants canceled, often involving research, with the allegation that an institution hadn’t done enough to protect Jewish students from antisemitism that allegedly occurred during student protests against Palestinian deaths in Gaza that were inflicted by the U.S.-backed Israeli military.
Critics allege that President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants now appears to include gathering up those legally present, or maneuvering to alter their status and encourage self-deportation, without due process.
The American Association of Colleges and Universities released “A call for constructive engagement” on April 22, signed by more than 100 college and university presidents, including President Fred P. Pestello of Saint Louis University.
The lengthy statement sought to “speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.”
“Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
