The ACLU has filed a federal class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 100 students whose F-1 student immigration statuses were unlawfully terminated. We're asking the court to reinstate their F-1 student status so that they can continue their studies.
On April 18, 2025, four ACLU affiliates and law firm Shaheen & Gordon filed a federal class action lawsuit seeking to represent over 100 students in New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico who had their F-1 student immigration status unlawfully and abruptly terminated with no specified reason as to why. The lawsuit asks the court to reinstate their F-1 student status, which would allow them to continue their studies.
This lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s sudden termination of student statuses at universities without any notice or stated explanation. 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.
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. With terminated F-1 statuses, they are also now at dire risk of detention and deportation.
These terminations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have been occurring since at least March 1, 2025, and have impacted hundreds, if not thousands, of international students throughout the United States. Inside Higher Ed estimates that, as of April 17, 2025, over 210 colleges and universities have identified 1,400-plus international students and recent graduates who have had their legal status changed. As of April 11, 2025, this includes 112 across New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico.
The lawsuit details how the unlawful termination of these students’ F-1 status violates their due process rights, as the government is required to provide 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 the revocation of an F-1 visa is not sufficient grounds 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 with a potential sentence of more than a year. For those who would be represented in this case, none of those situations exist.
