In U.S., more than 1,000 international students have had visas or legal status revoked

Over 1,000 international students face visa revocations, lawsuits against Trump administration, and risk of detention and deportation.

Over 1,000 international students have had their visas or legal status revoked in recent weeks, and several have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing the United States Government denied them due process when it suddenly took away their permission to be in the U.S. .

The actions by the Federal Government to terminate students' legal status has left hundreds of scholars at risk of detention and deportation. Their schools range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University to some small liberal arts colleges.

More than 1,024 students at 160 colleges, universities, and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March this year, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials, and court records.

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

Why is the government cancelling international students' visas? Visas can be cancelled for a number of reasons, but colleges say some students are being singled out over infractions as minor as traffic violations, including some long in the past. In some cases, students say it's unclear why they were targeted.

“The timing and uniformity of these terminations leave little question that DHS has adopted a nationwide policy, whether written or not, of mass termination of student [legal] status,” ACLU of Michigan attorneys wrote in a lawsuit on behalf of students at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan.

In New Hampshire, a federal judge last week issued a restraining order in the case of a Dartmouth College computer science student from China, Xiaotian Liu, who had his status terminated by the government. Attorneys have filed similar challenges in federal court in Georgia and California.