International students are taking on the US government over visas, status cancellations and winning

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A number of students whose immigration status was revoked have sued the Trump administration.

Beginning with Mahmoud Khalil, the prominent student leader at Columbia University who was arrested without a warrant on March 8, 2025, thousands of students across the country have found their legal status and visas revoked without cause or due process, wreaking havoc on colleges nationwide.

However, those who hired lawyers to sue the government are winning in court, and many have seen their status reactivated.

International students in the United States need an active Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) ID to remain and study U.S. Without it, students in the country cannot work, study or get a driver's license and are at risk of deportation.

"Charlie," a Bay Area student, who has asked us not to use his real name, is in the U.S. studying biology. He has no criminal record and no interactions with protests or the police, but one day he found his SEVIS ID was canceled out of the blue.

He agreed to speak to ABC7 News about his fight against the government, if we concealed his identity.

"I felt helpless," Charlie said, when recalling the moment he was called by the school advisor who told him his SEVIS had been terminated and he was in the United States illegally.

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"The government has been very vague about the reason, and it's just kind of a guessing game that students and advisors have to play. I actually had to apply for the Freedom of Information Act. They don't tell you the exact reason why your visa was canceled," he said.

Charlie's immigration advisors were at a loss but thought he should first try applying for a visa reinstatement. However, an immigration lawyer is needed to do that.

So that evening, Charlie called 35 Bay Area lawyers, one of whom advised him to go into hiding.

"The law firm I'm with now told me they do not see visa reinstatement as a viable option because I do not have a SEVIS record to reinstate my visa with and what they are going to do is to sue the government, so that's how I ended up here," he said.

"In nearly every court where a lawsuit has been brought on this issue, (the court) has ruled against the government and quickly done so," said Johnny Sinodis, partner at the law firm Van Der Hout that represents "Charlie" and 19 other Bay Area students who have ongoing lawsuits with the government.

Sinodis also represents the currently detained Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil.

Bay Area attorney Ben Loveman from Reeves Immigration Law Group successfully attained a restraining order from a judge that restored his client's SEVIS status. He says the terminations by ICE have been arbitrary and indiscriminate.

"We had orders from around the country from judges who have said essentially everything they've done so far is illegal," Loveman said.

Loveman's client, a mathematics PhD student, received notice from her university of her status termination, instructing her to leave the country.

"She was obviously confused. She's been following all the rules. She reaches out to us, and we tell her what (the government) is doing is illegal. Unfortunately, the only way we can remedy the situation is to go to federal court and ask a judge to order the government to follow the law," said Loveman.

In lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security, students have argued that the government lacked justification to cancel their visa or terminate their legal status.

"What ICE did to cancel the SEVIS records for these students was so outside the bounds of what they have authority to do that we felt very confident from the beginning," Sinodis said.

How ICE cancelled thousands of student visas

Starting in late March, the Trump administration had quietly revoked the immigration status of thousands of students across the country by running the names of all international students -- all 1.3 million of them -- through a database called the National Criminal Information Center, according to Homeland Security officials at a court hearing.

"6,400 students had their SEVIS accounts terminated and there was no individualized review for these students," Sinodis said.

"The idea that you would spend a month and use 10 to 20 people to go through every single student's name that's a non-citizen is preposterous. These students, I haven't come across any of them who actually had committed a crime that would give ICE the ability to terminate their SEVIS account. ICE operating outside the bounds of the law, which they frequently do. This was a mistake on a scale that is a little uncommon," he said.

Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate involved in pro-Palestinian protests this year, was arrested and detained on March 8, 2025. His arrest marked the start of a blitz of student visa cancellations.

According to Sinodis, Khalil has an upcoming hearing in immigration court on May 22 and is waiting for a separate ruling from the district court.

RELATED: ICE did not have warrant when agents detained Mahmoud Khalil: Court filing

"Mahmoud remains very strong, despite being thousands of miles away from his US citizen wife and newborn U.S. citizen son. And he understands that he is a test case and he also understands that all he did was engage in protected free speech and the US government has totally mischaracterized who he is as an individual and what he did on Columbia's campus. He was tapped to negotiate between all student groups and the university to hopefully reach a resolution to the suspensions that the school's head had handed out, and also to the individuals who were rightfully protesting the genocide in Gaza," Sinodis said.

On May 14, Judge Jeffrey S. White presiding at the Oakland courthouse of the Northern District of California issued a preliminary injunction preventing the government from taking any negative enforcement action against the students and ordering that the prior termination of their SEVIS records have no legal affect. Judge White is now considering whether to extend the preliminary injunction nationwide. A ruling is forthcoming and expected in the next few weeks.