Texas universities say Trump administration restored immigration status of some international students

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The Trump administration announced Friday it will restore the immigration status of thousands of international students for now — including more than 250 in Texas — weeks after many found out the federal government had revoked their ability to stay legally in the country.

It is unclear how many of the affected international students in Texas will have their status restored. In the days since the Trump administration's announcement, Texas A&M University, Texas Woman's University, the University of Texas at El Paso, Texas Tech University, Texas State University, the University of Houston and the University of North Texas — the latter of which enrolls the most international students in the state — have reported that some of their students’ legal statuses had changed back to active.

Students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley also had their status restored Friday, the students’ attorney said.

The Texas Tribune first learned that international students at Texas A&M were finding out, often without notification from the federal government, that their status had been marked as terminated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, a federal immigration database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. University officials said they had to refresh the database regularly to find out which students may be at risk for deportation.

This came after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that federal officials would use artificial intelligence to screen international students’ social media and revoke visas if they found any antisemitic content related to pro-Palestine protests that broke out on campuses nationwide last year.

A student’s legal immigration status as it appears in the SEVIS database and a visa are not the same. Without legal status, students are not permitted to work in the country and, in some cases, cannot continue their studies. A visa is a travel document issued by a U.S. consulate or embassy and the appeal process for a visa revocation is clearer.

After Rubio’s announcement, immigration officials also began terminating the legal status of students who had previously come into contact with law enforcement in the U.S., the American Immigration Lawyers Association said. Some students had been charged with traffic or minor offenses; others had only contacted authorities as victims or witnesses to a crime.

Lawyers representing some of the affected international students said the terminations were unprecedented and raised due process concerns, leading them to file a flurry of lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Judges agreed with them in many of those cases, temporarily restoring dozens of students’ legal statuses.

It was in one of these cases on Friday that the administration appeared to back down — but only to develop a policy that will provide the basis for ICE to terminate students’ legal status in the future, Department of Justice officials said.

More than 89,000 international students enrolled at Texas universities in 2024, an increase of about 10% from the previous year, according to Open Doors, an organization that conducts an annual census of international students in the country and is sponsored by the federal government. International students contributed $2.5 billion to the state’s economy, according to NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Despite the Trump administration’s about-face Friday, experts say the revocations in the last few weeks might still lead many international students to reconsider coming to the U.S.

“I’d still be fearful if I was an international student or parent of one,” said Kristin Etter, director of policy and legal resources at Texas Immigration Law Council.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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