The federal government responded this week to an ACLU lawsuit defending two international students at Montana State University whose visas were recently terminated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, filing a legal motion that provided the government’s first clear explanation of its actions.
In a response entered April 21 with the U.S. District Court in Butte, federal attorneys challenged the ACLU of Montana’s assertion that neither student has faced a criminal conviction in this country. Though the ACLU has endeavored to protect the identities of the plaintiffs, identifying them only as John Roe and Jane Doe, the government’s filing stated that a check of their information against criminal records allegedly revealed both had been arrested previously in Bozeman. Roe, the response claimed, was arrested by the Bozeman Police Department for theft, while Doe was arrested by MSU police for partner or family member assault. The filing offered no additional details about the alleged arrests or their outcomes.
Federal lawyers in Montana, led by U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme, also argued that the deletion of the students’ accounts in the Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) did not itself constitute a revocation of their F-1 visas, and insisted that they face no imminent threat of deportation. The attorneys requested U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen rescind the temporary restraining order he granted, along with a preliminary injunction, on April 15. That order blocked the federal government from revoking the visas and from arresting, detaining or deporting the students.
“Besides the alleged SEVIS account termination, plaintiffs neither allege nor establish that [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has instituted any other action to revoke their F-1 statuses or remove them from the United States, which could only occur after ICE instituted removal proceedings and plaintiffs were given an opportunity to appear before an immigration judge,” Alme wrote in the government’s response. “Once plaintiffs’ SEVIS terminations are correctly disentangled from their F-1 statuses, the entire basis for emergency relief disintegrates.”
Nationally, the situation that engulfed the two MSU students, along with a third international student at MSU and one at the University of Montana, appears to have shifted in recent days. After abruptly canceling the visas of more than 1,500 international students on campuses across the country, the Trump administration announced Friday that it was working on a new visa review and termination system, and that no additional changes or revocations would be made until that process was completed. It’s unclear yet what impact that decision will have on the string of lawsuits launched on behalf of many impacted students.
In Montana, the ACLU’s case is currently scheduled for an initial federal court hearing April 29. Asked Friday about the federal government’s recent claims about the plaintiffs and their legal standing, ACLU Legal Director Alex Rate emailed the following statement to Montana Free Press:
“Nothing in the government’s response changes the fact that they arbitrarily and without notice interfered with our clients’ abilities to complete their studies at MSU. The Trump Administration’s actions are terrorizing students across the country and have no legal basis.”
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