法庭记录显示，美国移民和海关执法局正在恢复一些国际学生的身份，他们在国土安全部数据库中的记录被终止。
在提交给联邦法院的一封电子邮件中，美国检察官马克·索特告诉代表这些学生的律师布拉德·巴尼亚斯，一些记录正在恢复中学生和交流访问者信息系统这是一个数据库，学校和政府机构用它来确认外国学生是否遵守他们的居留条件。
“ICE正在制定一项政策，为终止SEVIS记录提供一个框架。在这样的政策发布之前，本案原告(以及其他类似情况的原告)的SEVIS记录将保持活跃，或者如果目前不活跃，将被重新激活，ICE不会仅根据导致最近SEVIS记录终止的NCIC调查结果来修改记录，”Banias在电子邮件中说。
“移民及海关执法局保留因其他原因终止SEVIS记录的权力，例如，如果原告在记录被重新激活后未能保持其非移民身份，或参与其他非法活动，根据移民和国籍法，他或她将被驱逐出美国，”他补充说。
但是DHS澄清说，恢复签证只适用于“那些签证没有被吊销的人”
“我们从未撤销过一次签证。当被问及最近几周被终止的SEVIS身份中有多少将被恢复时，DHS的一名发言人在给美国广播公司新闻的一份声明中写道:“我们所做的是为那些签证没有被撤销的人恢复SEVIS的身份。”。
一个人的SEVIS记录被终止并不一定意味着学生的签证被自动撤销，但它可能导致签证被撤销。
这一重大逆转发生在几十起案件代表数百名学生的抗议在最近几周出现在全国各地。律师指责政府突然终止SEVIS的记录。
律师查尔斯·库克(Charles Kuck)在一场集体诉讼中代表133名学生，他们的身份上周早些时候被法官下令恢复，他周五告诉ABC新闻，他的其他客户也在没有法院命令的情况下恢复了他们的身份。周四晚上，他的客户开始提醒他这一变化。
“他们开始蜂拥而至——我大约10点就上床睡觉了，我收到了大约30封电子邮件，”他说。“当我今天早上醒来时，有数百个，所以很明显冰整夜都在工作。”
代表这些学生的律师说，终止他们的记录使他们有被驱逐出境的危险.
“如果你没有SEVIS记录，你不能提供强制性的更新，这是学校的立场，律师的立场，甚至USCIS的立场，当他们终止SEVIS，他们终止F-1身份。这就像是他们不可分割地交织在一起，这就是我们所理解的，”Banias在本周早些时候接受美国广播公司采访时说。
“所以当这些孩子在过去几周内被终止记录时，你知道，他们的学校说… DHS让你离开，”他补充道。
这种混乱在全国各地的法庭上爆发，因为政府律师有时无法告诉法庭记录被终止已经不在这个国家合法存在了。
当终止他们的记录时，政府通常很少或根本不解释原因。律师告诉美国广播公司新闻，虽然有些案件涉及参加大学校园亲巴勒斯坦示威的学生，但大多数没有。
很大一部分诉讼涉及与执法部门发生冲突的学生，他们没有因为轻微的交通违规和轻罪而被定罪，这通常不会导致终止。但是许多案件也涉及到学生，他们与执法部门没有任何接触。
目前还不清楚会恢复多少记录。
最近几周，两名联邦法官发布了临时限制令指示移民局必须暂时恢复两名俄亥俄州立大学学生的SEVIS身份，他们的SEVIS记录被突然终止。
在其中一个案例中，俄亥俄州立大学学生Ahwar Sultan在一次亲巴勒斯坦的抗议活动中被捕后，他的SEVIS记录被终止，他的签证随后被吊销。
Sultan的律师Rafael Urena告诉ABC新闻，俄亥俄州立大学周五下午告诉他，他的客户的记录“仍未被政府更新以反映积极的状态”，他不知道他的客户的状态是否会受到影响以及如何受到影响。
新罕布什尔州的美国公民自由联盟代表在SEVIS被取消身份的学生提起了两起诉讼。一个牵扯到了刘达特茅斯学院的博士，而另一个涉及一个集体诉讼面向新罕布什尔州、缅因州、马萨诸塞州、罗德岛州和波多黎各的学生。
“很明显，新罕布什尔州和全国范围内大量的法律文件和初步司法裁决对政府恢复一些学生的SEVIS记录并允许他们继续学业的决定产生了深远的影响，”新罕布什尔州美国公民自由联盟的法律主任吉勒·比松内特说。“许多问题仍然存在，包括这些重新启用的标准，以及这是否适用于没有提起诉讼的学生。
“在我们在新罕布什尔州提起的诉讼中，现在判断今天的事态发展是否会影响我们的集体诉讼还为时过早，”Bissonnette继续说道，并指出在刘的案件中，新罕布什尔州的美国公民自由联盟“无法确认”他的身份，因此法院将他的临时限制令延长至周二。
NAFSA:国际教育工作者协会是一个代表全国数千所大学和国际教育工作者的组织，其首席执行官Fanta Aw表示，她的组织已经记录了约1500起被终止的案件。虽然她说她很高兴听到记录正在恢复，但她强调，对于那些失去工作机会、被取消注册或被吊销学生签证的学生，现在会发生什么，还没有答案。
“这种宽慰来自于知道了这样一个问题:我今天或明天能去上课吗?答案是肯定的，”她说。“但同样，知道这种事情发生了，却没有明确的解释，并不能保证它不会再次发生。”
在美国哥伦比亚特区地方法院最近的一次听证会上，法官Ana Reyes反复询问一名政府律师，SEVIS记录的终止是否意味着一名学生不再是合法的。律师说他不知道。
“你知道这是卡夫卡式的吗，”她问道。
“我有两个经验丰富的移民律师代表一个客户，他还有几个月就毕业了，他没有做错任何事，他已经被一个系统终止了，你们一直告诉我这对他的移民身份没有影响，尽管这显然是废话，”她说。
“现在，他的两个非常有经验的律师甚至不能告诉他他在这里是否合法，因为法院不能告诉他他在这里是否合法，因为政府的律师不能告诉他他在这里是否合法。”
Trump administration restores status of international students after abrupt terminations
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is reinstating the status of some international students whose records they terminated on a Department of Homeland Security database, court records suggest.
In an email submitted in federal court, U.S. Attorney Mark Sauter told Brad Banias, a lawyer representing some of these students, that some records were being restored in theStudent and Exchange Visitor Information System, a database that schools and government agencies use to confirm if foreign students are abiding by the conditions of their stay.
"ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be re-activated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination," Banias said in the email.
"ICE maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons, such as if the plaintiff fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated or engages in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act," he added.
But DHS clarified this reinstatement applies only for "people who had not had their visa revoked."
"We have not reversed course on a single visa revocation. What we did is restore SEVIS access for people who had not had their visa revoked," a spokesperson for the DHS wrote in a statement to ABC News when asked how many of the SEVIS statuses it had terminated in recent weeks will be restored.
Having one's SEVIS record terminated doesn't necessarily mean a student's visa is automatically revoked, but it can lead to the visa being revoked.
The major reversal comes asdozens of casesrepresenting hundreds of students have popped up across the country in recent weeks. Lawyers accused the government of abruptly terminating the records on SEVIS.
Attorney Charles Kuck, who represents 133 students in a class-action lawsuit whose statuses were ordered to be restored by a judge earlier last week, told ABC News on Friday that additional clients of his also had their status restored without a court order. His clients began alerting him of the change Thursday night.
"They started rolling in -- I went to bed at about 10 and I had gotten about 30 emails," he said. "When I woke up this morning, there was hundreds, so clearly ICE was working all night long."
Lawyers representing these students said the termination of their records was putting themat risk of being deported.
"If you don't have a SEVIS record, you can't provide the mandatory updates and it's the school's position, attorney's position, and even USCIS' position that when they terminate SEVIS, they terminate F-1 status. It's kind of like they are inextricably interposed, that is what was understood," Banias told ABC News in an interview earlier this week.
"So when these kids got their records terminated over the last couple of weeks, you know, their schools were saying … DHS is telling you to leave," he added.
That confusion erupted in courtrooms across the country as government lawyers at times were unable to tell the court whether a person whoserecord was terminatedon this database was no longer in the country legally.
When terminating their records, the government often gave little to no explanation as to why. While some cases involved students who had participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at university campuses, the majority did not, lawyers told ABC News.
A large portion of the lawsuits involved students who had run-ins with law enforcement and were not convicted for things such as minor traffic infractions and minor misdemeanors, which would not typically lead to a termination. But many of the cases also involved students who had no interactions with law enforcement at all.
It's unclear how many records will be restored.
In recent weeks, two federal judges issuedtemporary restraining ordersdirecting that ICE must temporarily reinstate the SEVIS status of two Ohio State University students whose SEVIS records were abruptly terminated.
In one of those cases, Ohio State University student Ahwar Sultan's SEVIS record was terminated following his arrest at a pro-Palestinian protest, and his visa was subsequently revoked.
Sultan's attorney Rafael Urena told ABC News that Ohio State University told him Friday afternoon that his client's record "has still not been updated by the government to reflect an Active status yet" and that he did not know if and how his client's status will be affected.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire filed two lawsuits on behalf of students whose statuses were rescinded in SEVIS. Oneinvolved Xiaotian Liu, a doctoral at Dartmouth College, while the other involved aclass-action lawsuitfor students across New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico.
"It is clear that the deluge of legal filings and initial judicial rulings in New Hampshire and nationwide have had a profound impact on the government's decision to reactivate the SEVIS records of some students and allow them to continue their studies," said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. "Many questions remain, including the criteria that will be used for these reactivations and whether this will apply to students who did not file lawsuits.
"In the litigation we have filed in New Hampshire, it is too soon to tell how today's developments may or may not impact our class-action lawsuit," Bissonnette continued, noting that in Liu's case, the ACLU of New Hampshire is "unable to confirm" his status and so the court has extended a temporary restraining order in his case until Tuesday.
Fanta Aw, the CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, an organization that represents thousands of universities and international educators across the country, said her organization has logged about 1,500 cases that have been terminated. While she said she is thrilled to hear the records are being restored, she emphasized that there are no answers about what happens now to students who have lost job opportunities, been unenrolled from classes, or had their student visas revoked.
"The relief comes from knowing that the question of, can I go to class today or tomorrow? The answer is yes," she said. "But in the same token, knowing that this happened with no clear explanation is not assurance that it can't happen again."
At a recent hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Ana Reyes repeatedly asked a government lawyer if the termination of a SEVIS record means a student is no longer in the country legally. The lawyer said he did not know.
"Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque," she asked.
"I've got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS," she said.
"And now, his two very experienced lawyers can't even tell him whether or not he's here legally because the court can't tell him whether or not he's here legally because the government's counsel can't tell him if he's here legally."
