Trump administration forced to reveal its ham-handed operation to terminate immigration records of thousands of students

The Trump administration was forced to reveal new information Tuesday about its ham-handed and legally dubious operation to cancel the immigration records of thousands of international students that a federal judge described as a blatant due process violation that “concerned” and “troubled” her. A Department of Homeland Security official who was deeply involved in the maneuver said in court that the administration had relied on the National Crime Information Center, a registry recording individuals’ interactions with law enforcement. The approach meant that international students who had very minor run-ins with the law – including driving citations, misdemeanor charges that were ultimately dismissed, and arrests that never resulted in charges – were put in a legal limbo that prompted at least 100 of them to sue in recent weeks. A team of 10 to 20 people were tasked with running the names of the 1.3 million international students through the database, Andre Watson, a senior official within the DHS’ National Security Division for the Homeland Security Investigations, told Judge Ana Reyes. The only individualized review was then to verify the name in the law enforcement database was the same person as the name in a portal known as “SEVIS,” which schools use to ensure their international students are meeting the requirements of their educational visas. Judge Reyes’ demands that Watson appear in person to answer her questions at Tuesday proceedings came after previous hearings where she and other judges across the country were stonewalled by Justice Department attorneys. One attorney told multiple judges in Washington, DC, last week that ICE was refusing to provide the information that would allow him to answer basic questions about what the administration was doing. Even after the administration announced Friday that it was backtracking on the effort and reinstating the records for all the students caught up in the law enforcement database sweep, Reyes and other judges moved forward with their plans to scrutinize what had driven the terminations. The Justice Department previously insisted that canceling a SEVIS record by itself does not put an international student out of legal status. But because the cancellation prompted panicked notices from schools to the students that instructed them not to come to class or work at their on-campus jobs, those students were then failing to meet the obligations of their visas. That appears to have the effect of putting students out of legal status and making them subject to deportation. Additionally, a DHS website for international students said that termination of their SEVIS records meant they needed to leave the country immediately or apply for reinstatement of their status. Watson explained that over a period of three or so weeks, the DHS employees sent batches of names that had come up as a match between the two datasets. The initial number of matches was 16,000, but after some whittling down, the list narrowed down to about 6,400. Those names were sent to the State Department. The State Department did its own review and returned a list of students from the dataset whose visas were being revoked, according to the court proceedings and internal emails submitted in the case. Visas are travel documents that allow for entry into the United States and are distinct from a noncitizen’s immigration status once they are in the country. DHS ultimately directed that the SEVIS records be terminated both for students whose visas were canceled and for those who merely were on a match for the crime database hit. Reyes remarked that, for the data batch that included the name of the student in the case in front of her, it took only 15 minutes after receiving the list for a DHS official to order the termination of his student immigration records and the records of hundreds of others. The student, Akshar Patel, who was just weeks away from graduation at the time, was on the list because of a reckless driving charge that had been dismissed by a judge. “You and I both know Mr. Patel is not a criminal,” Reyes said in court, asking Watson to contemplate a situation in which the government deported every immigrant who had a speeding ticket. Reyes demanded Watson’s presence Tuesday after the administration had been cagey about the repercussions of canceling the SEVIS records – both in her court and in proceedings before several other judges. Watson claimed Tuesday that the termination of the records was meant as an investigatory flag for schools, but grilled by Reyes, he could not point to any administration effort to proactively communicate to schools that that was the intention. Instead, the terminations in the SEVIS portal were recorded in a catch-all category that tagged the cancellation as being because the student had a criminal record, had failed to maintain status, or for some other unidentified reason. Justice Department attorney Johnny Walker acknowledged that was “not necessarily” the “right” language to describe the terminations and said it could have been the fault of a contractor. He couldn’t, however, elaborate for the judge whether a contractor or anyone from outside the government might have been brought in for that aspect of the project. Reyes remarked that in addition to the chaos wrought on schools and students, students now were on the hook for legal bills to pay the lawyers who sued on their behalf. “All of this could have been avoided,” she said, if the administration had just taken a beat, “instead of just rushing things.” “But that’s not what happened.” CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz contributed to this report.