Saint Paul, Minnesota — Five Concordia University graduate students are suing because their F-1 student status was revoked without notice.
Almas Abdul, Shyam Vardhan Reddy Yarkareddy, Nithish Babu Challa, Akhil Pothuraju, and Salma Rameez Shaik are all Indian graduate students pursuing master’s degrees in information technology and management who have filed the lawsuit.
Noncitizens can enrol as F-1 students in government-approved academic institutions and stay in the United States as long as they meet certain requirements, such as continuing to study full-time.
The suit claimed the students were enrolled in Optional Practical Training, which allows them to maintain their F-1 student status for a set number of months while working in a job directly related to their field.
The students’ F-1 status was revoked while they were in this training. According to the lawsuit, the students learned from the university, not the government, that their status had been revoked, prompting university officials to advise them to stop working and consider leaving the country.
The lawsuit contends that the students were denied the opportunity to object, which is a foundation “of the procedural due process to which all persons in the United States (including noncitizens) are entitled under the Fifth Amendment.”
“In the aftermath of Defendants’ lawless decisions, Plaintiffs have been cast into untenable uncertainty, living at risk of detention and removal, accruing unlawful presence that could hamper their futures in this country, and being prohibited from continuing their training to support themselves and to secure their futures,” according to the lawsuit!
The lawsuit was filed against Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons, and Minneapolis-St. Paul Minnesota ICE field office director Peter Berg.
The plaintiffs are asking a judge to rule that the termination of their F-1 student status violated their Fifth Amendment procedural due process rights.
According to the Associated Press, international students across the country who had their visas revoked in recent weeks have filed lawsuits, claiming that the government denied them due process when it abruptly removed their permission to be in the United States.
Their educational institutions range from private universities like Harvard and Stanford to large public institutions like the University of Maryland and Ohio State University, as well as small liberal arts colleges.
Meanwhile, a University of Minnesota student faces a charge typically reserved for terrorists after being arrested by ICE in March. According to the Department of Homeland Security, Dogukan Gunaydin’s detention is the result of a drunk driving conviction. Gunaydin, a Turkish citizen, has also filed a lawsuit.
Four of the five Concordia graduate students state in their lawsuit that they have traffic tickets or misdemeanours. One student claims to have never been charged with a crime, civil infraction, or immigration law violation.