ACLU files lawsuit challenging termination of student visas in Massachusetts, Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — The Rhode Island ACLU said that four ACLU affiliates and law firm Shaheen & Gordon filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking to represent more than 100 students in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico who had their F-1 student immigration status “unlawfully and abruptly” terminated.

The ACLU said that the students were not given a reason as to why their visas where terminated, and the lawsuit asks for the visa to be reinstated.

The organization added that several of the students represented in the lawsuit where enrolled at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.

“According to the lawsuit, these unilateral and unlawful terminations have severely disrupted the educational opportunities of these students who are in the middle of their studies (and in the middle of a semester) and who are simply trying to obtain, often at considerable expense, an education in the United States while following all the rules required of them,” the ACLU said in a statement on the lawsuit. “With terminated F-1 statuses, they are also now at dire risk of detention and deportation.”

The organization added that the termination of the visas violated the students’ due process rights, “as the government is required to provide advance notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond.”

“We continue to be alarmed by the Trump administration’s sudden termination of student statuses at universities across the country without any notice or stated explanation,” Legal Director of the ACLU of New Hampshire Gilles Bissonnette said. “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.”