Earlier this week, all NYU students who were affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration had their legal status reactivated after the State Department faced scrutiny from federal courts — ending a nearly monthlong attack on student visa holders. Despite the reversal, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said it would create a new policy providing a “framework for status record termination.” Three immigration experts spoke to WSN about NYU’s role in protecting its international community, accusing the government of violating the First Amendment.
Richard Boswell, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, said that a university’s relationship with the Department of Homeland Security in regard to monitoring student visas is “very complicated,” and that the university is effectively sponsoring the student.
“It all depends on what the cancellation is based on,” Boswell said. “Was it based on a parking ticket, which is not a basis for concluding that the person is out of status? Is it that the student didn’t go to classes? Or was it something larger like the secretary of state, in an extreme case, canceling that person’s visa?”
Boswell, who also directs an immigrants rights clinic at UC Law SF, said that if a student has done something “that might render them no longer eligible” for their visa, then the school should have “a moral obligation” to inform the student about their status change. He said that in the event a student’s legal status is canceled, they may still have a right to a hearing to determine whether or not the cancellation is “supportable in an immigration court.”
In the last few weeks, deans across NYU’s schools have held in-person sessions with students and faculty about ICE’s recent visa revocations. At the sessions, representatives from the Office of Global Services said that only a “low” number of NYU affiliates had seen changes to their immigration status, and that some had recorded misdemeanors. They also said they have been in direct contact with all students who faced changes to their immigration status and stated that although OGS faculty cannot check whether or not the student’s visa was revoked, but that they could monitor their legal status.
Boswell said that “there are a lot of things that a university could possibly do” to protect noncitizen students potentially at risk of having their legal status terminated. Boswell said that a university’s First Amendment rights would also be impacted if a student faced changes to their status, noting that “part of the reason for bringing in foreign students is because they’re coming in with a different perspective.”
“A university does have a role to play in this, and they may possibly consider whether or not they should be bringing actions against the federal government,” Boswell said. “The university may — I think, should — want to protect its own private space to not just openly allow immigration to do whatever it wants to do.”
Last month, NYU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors sued the federal government for its detainment of noncitizens on college campuses protesting Israel’s ongoing siege in Gaza. The lawsuit accuses Trump, the DHS and the State Department of violating the “right to listen” under the First Amendment, claiming that the detainments of pro-Palestinian protesters at schools like Columbia University and Tufts University have created a “climate of repression and fear” on college campuses.
Boswell said that immigration agents should “operate within the law” on college campuses, including having a warrant to access campus buildings, enter classrooms or question people. NYU has said that law enforcement must have a judicial warrant or subpoena “to enter NYU facilities for immigration-related enforcement purposes.” The university also stated that it does not “voluntarily provide information” about NYU affiliates to third parties, including government agencies.
“We have people who are here in the United States, and all they’re doing is expressing a view, and the government is saying that those views are, in their minds, reprehensible, inactionable, and in others’ minds, they’re just views — they’re just opinions,” Boswell said. “No one is saying that these students or these faculty members or whoever are actually taking any action that might be regarded as unlawful, terroristic or whatever.”
Charles Kuck, the former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that the federal government has justified the mass revocations of student visas as “prudential revocations,” which the Department of State can rule for visas based on “suspected ineligibility.” He said that although such revocations have “no meaning” in actuality, universities are obligated to comply with federal law.
“The rules on visa revocations are very narrowly construed and are really designed to only occur in grievous situations or situations of extreme national importance or national interest,” Kuck said. “The students that were recently terminated fill none of those categories.”
Jeff Joseph, who works as a litigator on government strategies, said that visa revocations have no impact on a person’s underlying immigration status. Instead, he said that threats of deportation serve as a “compliance tool” that results in students getting “kicked out of schools and kicked out of their dorms.” He emphasized that NYU has an obligation to uphold values of free speech, despite seeing backlash from the government as cuts to research funding.
“This is not only a legal obligation to their core mission, but also a constitutional and moral obligation to continue with the idea that the whole point of our democracy is that we want people to disagree with each other,” Joseph said. “It’s a travesty of existential proportions for our universities. My sincere hope is that they don’t cower in fear and that they fight back aggressively.”
Jennifer Jesus contributed reporting.
Contact Jennifer Jesus at news@nyunews.com.
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