KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the Trump administration from deporting five Missouri college students.
Those international students are in Missouri under an F-1 visa.
U.S. District Court Stephen Bough signed the order on Thursday.
According to the judge's decision, the Department of Homeland Security recently terminated the visa registrations of the five students in SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System), the database maintained by DHS to track information about non-immigrant students.
Bough's decision states DHS cannot revoke the students’s visas. It also prevents the government from detaining or deporting the students.
Last week, before the judge's decision, KSHB’s Fernanda Silva spoke to Rekha Sharma-Crawford, the students’ immigration attorney.
She said her clients were “overwhelmed,” “desperate,” and “scared.”
We requested interviews with the students, but according to Sharma-Crawford, they were not comfortable with talking to us.
"Normalcy is no longer normal in the United States,"Sharma-Crawford said. "Nothing is predictable."
According to Sharma-Crawford, when students have their SEVIS revoked, schools will not allow them to complete their education. Some of the students were getting ready for finals when they received the notification from DHS.
She says students received emails announcing their SEVIS statuses were canceled.
“Why are they terminating? There’s no information in any of the emails that the students are getting that says why,” said Sharma-Crawford.
The lawyer filed the case on April 20.
According to the judge's decision, the “only apparent basis” for the SEVIS cancellations is that the students “had some legal infractions of varying degrees, consequences, and outcomes.”
Information about the infractions was not released.
Sharma-Crawford and Judge Bough's written decision did not reveal the names of the students, but their backgrounds were available in the lawsuit.
One of the students is from Nigeria and attends Truman State University. Another is from Spain and attends Northwest Missouri State University. A third student is from Nepal and attends Southeast Missouri State University.
Two of the students completed their education and are now working professionally.
One of them is from Bangladesh and previously attended Virginia Tech University and as part of his education, he works in Kansas City. The employer's name was not released.
The last student, from Nigeria, attends Missouri University of Science and Technology, and as part of her education, is currently employed in Columbia, Missouri.
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KSHB 41 reporter Fe Silva covers education stories involving K-12. Share your story idea with Fe.
