The United States suddenly stopped revoking student visas given to foreign students on Friday, reports say.
Assistant US Attorney Joseph F. Carilli Jr. told a Washington DC court that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is in the process of developing a new system of giving and revoking visas.
The student record status to be targeted in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) will be kept active or be reactivated, in case it gets deactivated when the shutdown determination is made. The records of ICE will not change based only on NCIC discoveries leading to closure of the most recent SEVIS records, an important American news agency added.
More than 1,500 student visas had already been cancelled by then, although it is not yet clear what will be done with the students who departed the US after their visas were cancelled.
The cancellations are said to be over reports that students were involved in demonstrations on campus universities against Israeli military actions in Gaza following the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. Students also had visas withdrawn who were charged with law breaking.
Universities had been the target previously from the Trump administration for what they perceived as a failure on the part of universities to quash the protests and protect Jewish students.
Among the victims of cancellations were Indian students. An American panel of lawyers estimated the figure to be 50% of more than 300 cancellations it had seen that involved Indian students, although no reported number has been given for the number of cancellations.
The action on Friday follows a series of lawsuits filed by or on behalf of students who had their visas cancelled.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio approximated that it is not America's national nor foreign policy interest to allow on university campuses people who, instead of studying engineering or physics, are there mobilizing movements related to foreign terrorist organizations who are committed to violence and destruction. He finished by saying that they would be able to exercise terrorism not only in Israel but everywhere in the world.
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