Trump administration reveals how it targeted thousands of international students on visas

After thousands of international students abruptly lost their legal statuses in the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security offered some insight Tuesday into how some of the terminations were decided.

After thousands of international students abruptly lost their legal statuses in the past few months, the Department of Homeland Security offered some insight Tuesday into how some of the terminations were decided. 

At a court hearing in Washington about the recent targeting of many international students across the country, the department said it used 10 to 20 employees to run the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students through the National Crime Information Center, an FBI-run computerized index that includes criminal history information. 

The process populated the 6,400 “hits.” And from there, many students experienced terminations of their records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which maintains information about nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors. 

In the hearing, the federal government detailed its initiative to screen foreign students entitled the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative.” Andre Watson, assistant director of DHS said that the employees served in “various roles as analysts” and that the entire process, overseen by DHS acting Executive Director Robert Hammer, took two to three weeks.

Names were sent to the State Department, Watson said, and roughly 3,000 students had their visas revoked. The State Department then instructed DHS to terminate the students’ SEVIS records.