Federal judge grants preliminary injunction protecting MSU students’ visa status

A federal judge on Tuesday granted a preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from revoking the visa status of two Montana State University graduate students and prohibiting the federal government from arresting, detaining or transferring either student from Montana. 

In April, four international students affiliated with the Montana University System had their visas revoked and student visitor records terminated.

Due to the possibility of immediate deportation due to the change in status, two of the students challenged the decision in federal court.

The ACLU of Montana sued on their behalf, and the Trump administration subsequently and separately reinstated them in a database that keeps those records, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS.

However, Alex Rate with the ACLU of Montana previously told the Daily Montanan continuing the lawsuit would ensure the students have ongoing assurance their status would not change again without cause. 

U.S. District Court Judge Dana L. Christensen previously granted an emergency restraining order preventing the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from deporting the students, and Tuesday’s 26-page ruling converts that restraining order into a preliminary injunction, reinstating their legal status for the duration of the lawsuit. 

“The court made it clear that the Trump administration cannot unilaterally circumvent the law and punish students who have followed all the rules by stripping them of their legal status, disrupting their studies, and putting them at risk of deportation,” said Akilah Deernose, Executive Director of the ACLU of Montana, in a press statement. “We are pleased that the Court granted a preliminary injunction to provide longer-term certainty and to preserve the status quo until the lawsuit is resolved. Now our clients have the assurance they need to continue their graduate studies, especially given the unpredictable actions undertaken by the Trump administration.” 

On April 25, the Department of Homeland Security reversed a policy that had resulted in the mass termination of international students’ SEVIS records, but the court found in its ruling that because defendants could not provide “any information — let alone any specific information or timelines” about the new policy, a preliminary injunction was warranted. 

“At risk of understandment, the defendants’ approach to these particular issues presents an ever-changing landscape,” according to court documents. Without more information or a guarantee of the plaintiffs’ status, “The changes wrought by defendants appear to fall squarely within the category of ‘easily abandoned or altered in the future.”

 The court’s ruling also found that the Trump administration failed to follow its own agency’s regulation in terminating the SEVIS records, saying the action was “arbitrary and capricious.” 

According to court documents, the federal government argued that the students’ records were terminated “due to their criminal history,” but neither student has been convicted of a crime. 

One student was arrested in March and charged with misdemeanor theft, but pleaded not guilty and has not been convicted of any offense. 

The other student had been arrested and charged with misdemeanor partner and/or family member assault but also pleaded not guilty and has not been convicted of any offense. 

The Department of Homeland Security cited a regulation that says criminal activity could result in termination of status as justification for their actions, but the court found that the regulation specifically states that a “conviction” for “a crime of violence for which more than one year imprisonment may be imposed [] constitutes a failure to maintain status.”

The charges against the plaintiffs don’t satisfy the criteria, the ruling states, due to one carrying a maximum sentence of less than one year of imprisonment, the other carrying no prison time, and neither plaintiff has been convicted. 

As a result of the injunction, both students have been able to return to work and school, according to the ACLU press release. 

The students — one pursuing a doctorate in electrical engineering and physics and the other a master’s degree in microbiology — are both “only a matter of months away from obtaining their advanced degrees.”