The list of international university students in weeks who've lost their visas or other authorization to stay in the United States has now surpassed 1,400, affecting dozens of campuses nationwide.
While the Trump administration has said it is targeting students and scholars who've committed crimes or participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, many of those now facing the prospect of forced deportation say they never protested anything and have no real criminal record.
Scripps News spoke to four immigration attorneys across the country who all said they are seeing students whose visas or other legal protections were pulled without a clear explanation.
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The ACLU of Michigan has filed a lawsuit on behalf of four international students in the state. "Some have not even committed a traffic violation ... nor have they been active in on-campus protests regarding any political issue," the lawsuit claims.
"They're left wondering, why is the government doing this?" said Ramis Wadood, staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan. "If I haven't broken any of the rules, if all I've done is study, why is the government going after me? And to this day we still don't have that answer."
A good example is Brigham Young University student Suguru Onda, who is currently in the process of getting his Ph.D. His authorization to study in the U.S. vanished apparently after a criminal records check. Yet Onda, from Japan, had just two speeding tickets and a citation for catching one too many fish on his record, his attorney Adam Crayk said.
"We reached out and said, look, this has to be a mistake," Crayk said. "There's nothing that's been done here that would theoretically constitute a violation of the student visa. There's nothing."
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The government had given Onda 15 days to leave the country.
"That's really soon," Onda told the Scripps News Group in Salt Lake City. "I have a family and five children."
After Onda shared his story with Scripps and news media outlets, and hired an attorney who filed litigation, the government restored his legal status as mysteriously as it had canceled it. He is now again able to remain in the country with his wife and five children, two of whom are U.S. citizens.
Hundreds of other students unable to afford attorneys must now consider whether to leave the U.S. quickly or continue their studies under the threat of being grabbed off the street by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as happened to Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk after co-writing an opinion article in the campus newspaper.
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"To unilaterally act without reviewing or giving somebody the opportunity to respond, it's just a complete lack of fundamental fairness and due process," Crayk said. "It's taking away something that we have literally believed in since 1776."
The State Department did not answer questions from Scripps News about why students with no criminal record, who never took part in protests, are being ordered to leave. A spokesperson sent a statement saying the Department is focused on those who "violate U.S. laws, threaten public safety, or in other situations where warranted."
Most of the students who have lost their legal status have not been detained, but President Trump has said when it comes to international students who participate in protests, he would like to see many arrests.
