The federal government’s reversal last week regarding the cancelation of student visas is having an impact within the halls of Pittsburgh’s institutions of higher learning.
On Friday, the Trump administration announced it would restore student visas of thousands of international students in the United States — at least temporarily — while Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, develops a new process for reviewing and canceling such visas.
Many students abruptly saw their records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) disappear — a database used by ICE that tracks compliance with requirements to maintain a student’s legal status. The action affected dozens of students in Pennsylvania.
“Previously, 2 Pitt graduate students, 1 undergraduate student and 3 recent Pitt graduates had their records in SEVIS terminated by the federal government,” University of Pittsburgh spokesperson Jared Stonesifer said. All six have had records reinstated as of Monday morning.
Carnegie Mellon University students were also affected. The school hasn’t responded to requests for information about those students, but provost James H. Garrett acknowledged at the onset of the federal actions, the revocations were "creating anxiety and disruption for many and has directly impacted a subset of our community."
He said that CMU's Office of International Education reached out to the students directly to offer support and connect them with information about legal resources.
The office has also published FAQs about federal immigration enforcement and a communication urging international students to carefully weigh risks before traveling out of the country.
In the weeks following, dozens of judges across the country issued orders to restore students’ information to the database.
Many students targeted in the action had minor disciplinary records that the government uncovered after running background checks. The removal of international student data is among the latest actions from the Trump administration in the wake of promised mass deportations made during the presidential campaign.
