International students win another legal decision against Trump administration’s immigration actions
A federal judge in Atlanta ordered the Trump administration on Friday to maintain the legal status of 133 current and former international college students who were legally admitted into the United States for school only to have their status suddenly revoked.
The preliminary injunction by Judge Victoria Marie Calvert of the Northern District of Georgia was anticipated after she issued a temporary restraining order in favor of the plaintiffs last month.
A federal attorney for the administration officials named as defendants, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, produced no evidence to justify revoking the plaintiffs’ status under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVIS), Calvert wrote.
“Defendants have had ample opportunity to provide the court with additional information about the SEVIS terminations but have consistently failed to do so,” says her order, which prohibits the government from repeating the revocations during the duration of the lawsuit. “Defendants’ failure to provide a single plausibly lawful explanation for its action is the exact circumstance contemplated by the arbitrary and capricious standard.”
Calvert concluded that the students would likely win their case, which accuses the government of acting in an arbitrary and capricious — and unlawful — way.
The anonymous plaintiffs include 27 foreign nationals attending a Georgia college or university or doing post-graduate work, the order says. Another 106 are in other states, and their attorneys argued that the cases should be bundled to reduce their legal costs and the workload on the court system.
Calvert allowed all 133 to proceed in this one case.
Calvert’s order indefinitely extends the temporary restraining order she issued two weeks ago that required U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to restore the plaintiffs’ visitor status.
The agency’s prior revocation of the students’ status stripped them of the right to work and would have barred them from re-entering the country if they left to visit home. Their attorney, Charles Kuck, argued it would have caused irreparable harm that outweighed the harm to the government, and the judge agreed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney R. David Powell failed to convince her that President Donald Trump’s administration would face irreparable harm from a ruling against the government that would “interfere with the executive’s right to control immigration.”
Calvert’s order is the latest legal setback for the president’s immigration policy after a string of court decisions favoring foreign students whose visitor status was similarly revoked without notice or explanation. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., also recently accused the Trump administration of “arbitrary and capricious” actions.
During last week’s hearing on this preliminary injunction, Powell said ICE has been busy restoring students’ status, with judges’ orders coming weekly, daily and “sometimes multiple per day.”
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