CONCORD, N.H. - The ACLU of New Hampshire and Shaheen & Gordon today filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Dartmouth College student who had his F-1 student immigration status unlawfully and abruptly terminated on Friday with no specified reason as to why - despite having never committed a crime or traffic violation and having never participated in any protest in the United States or elsewhere. The lawsuit asks the court to reinstate this student’s F-1 student status, which would allow him to continue his studies.
“We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s sudden revocation, without any notice or stated explanation, of student visas and status at universities across the country, including our client here in New Hampshire,” said Gilles Bissonnette, Legal Director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. “International students are a vital community in our state’s universities, and no administration should be allowed to circumvent the law to unilaterally strip students of status, disrupt their studies, and put them at risk of deportation.”
The doctoral student, a citizen of China, is studying and researching computer science at Dartmouth College. This past Friday, he was informed by his college via email that his student status had been terminated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“These indiscriminate government actions have real-life consequences. The people affected are not just ‘case numbers,’ they are real people with real families, real colleagues, real employers, real fellow congregants and others, all of whom feel the acute pain of these inexplicably arbitrary and indefensibly inhumane decisions,” said Ronald L. Abramson, Partner at Shaheen & Gordon.
The lawsuit details how the unlawful termination of the client’s student F-1 status violates his due process rights, as the government is required to provide him with an advance notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond. Additionally, the lawsuit states that the government is required to have grounds in order to terminate a student status, and that revocation of an F-1 visa is not sufficient ground to terminate student status.
To terminate student status, the student, for example, must fail to take full courses of study, engage in unauthorized employment, or be convicted of a violent crime. None of those situations exist in this case, thus there is no basis to terminate his student status.
This student status termination means that he cannot pursue his Ph.D. program and is no longer authorized to work as a research assistant. In addition to his education, research, and career trajectory being at risk, he faces the possibility of immediate detention and deportation.
