Indian student, 3 others sue US government over 'unlawful' deportation

An Indian was among four students at Michigan public universities who have filed a lawsuit against their possible deportation after their student immigration status was terminated "unlawfully".

Chinmay Deore from Inida, Xiangyun Bu and Qiuyi Yang from China, and Yogesh Joshi from Nepal on Friday filed the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immigration officials, saying their student immigration status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) was illegally terminated "without sufficient notice and explanation".

SEVIS is a database that tracks information about nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors in the US.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, which is representing the students, on Thursday, said they "filed a federal lawsuit along with a request for an emergency injunction on behalf of the students who had their F-1 student immigration status unlawfully and abruptly terminated by the Trump administration for no valid reason and without notice".

"The lawsuit asks the court to reinstate the status of these students so that they will be able to complete their studies and avoid facing the risk of detention and deportation," it said.

"None of them has been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime in the US. None has violated any immigration law. Nor have they been active in on-campus protests regarding any political issue," said a complaint in the court, naming DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons and ICE Detroit Field Office Director Robert Lynch.

"DHS did not provide the students or their schools any meaningful explanation for terminating their F-1 student status," the complaint said. "At most, what seems to connect students targeted by this newfound and unlawful policy is that the students had some encounter with some American law enforcement official at some point in the past, no matter how innocuous -- including receiving a speeding or parking ticket (or even a warning) or lawfully withdrawing an application to enter the United States."  The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration's immigration crackdown strikes higher education, prompting a slew of lawsuits against White House officials.

Similar lawsuits have been filed across the country in states like New Hampshire, Indiana and California.

These cruel and illegal government actions have real-life consequences. Status terminations don't just disrupt the lives of the students being targeted; the government's actions will inevitably deter future international scholars from choosing Michigan and the US as their academic destination. This will further undermine the reputation of our universities as leaders in research, innovation, and campus diversity, all of which are currently in jeopardy, said Ramis Wadood, staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan.