Foreign Michigan Students Sue Over Revoked Immigration Status

Four Michigan college students sued the Trump administration on Thursday over the abrupt termination of the federal government’s permission for them to study in the United States.

The students—two from the University of Michigan and two from Wayne State University in Detroit—weren’t notified by the federal government that their permission to be in the US to study was revoked, according to the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Each received an email from their respective universities that said school officials learned of the change in status during a periodic check of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database. According to the database, each student’s status was revoked because they were “identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked,” the suit says.

The students—from China, India, and Nepal—may now face detention and deportation, according to the suit.

“These terminations have put Plaintiffs’ education, research, and career trajectory at risk,” the lawsuit says.

The quartet says the revocations of their status without a chance to be heard violates their Fifth Amendment rights and federal administrative law. The students want a federal judge to restore their student immigration status, both while the case is pending and after, or provide them with time to find a way to maintain it.

The lawsuit, which is one of several from across the country, comes as the State Department in recent weeks has quietly revoked hundreds of student visas. Many were linked to participation in campus protests or pro-Palestinian activism, but others may be for a variety of infractions—even if they weren’t convicted of a crime.

That’s been followed by Homeland Security officials deleting records in the student exchange database, attorneys and college officials say.

In the case of the Michigan students, none were charged with a crime in the US, violated an immigration law, or were active in protests on political issues, the suit says, though it also details instances of interactions with law enforcement and immigration officials. They also said they haven’t run afoul of other regulations student immigrants must follow to maintain their status.

“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 states.

The students also seek an order barring immigration officials from carrying out similar acts against others whose circumstances don’t rise to the level of revocation.

The students are represented by the American Civil Liberties Fund of Michigan, Pitt McGehee Palmer Bonanni & Rivers, and Russell Abrutyn of Southfield, Mich.

The case is Deore v. Noem, E.D. Mich., No. 2:25-cv-11038, filed 4/10/25.