Alan Montecillo [00:00:35] Tyche, you’ve covered immigration for a long time. Based on your conversations with immigration lawyers, advocates, just what we’ve seen in the news, how would you describe the mood right now, especially on college campuses?
Tyche Hendricks [00:01:30] I would say destabilized. I think there’s a lot of fear. And for university administrations, this is a very tough time. They’re feeling pressure from the Trump administration over DEI policies, over their curricula around Middle Eastern studies and so forth. And real dollars are being withheld. And so they are destabilized and concerned.
Alan Montecillo [00:01:54] How much of a shift is this and how has the Trump administration justified these actions?
Tyche Hendricks [00:02:02] So the Trump administration has said, there’s no room for your student activism. They are equating pro-Palestinian activism with anti-Semitism. And Marco Rubio has said we gave you a visa to come here and study. We didn’t give you a visa come here and tear up universities. But in some of these cases, these are students who were not involved in any political activism. But in, some cases, they may have had a minor. brush with the law in their history, and it seems like those things are being targeted as well. You know, student visas do get revoked, but it’s typically if you stop going to class, you know, if your course load falls below the required amount or if you, you know take a job that you’re not authorized to have under your visa or something like that. But this is really, I would say, pretty unprecedented that the government is coming in and sort of terminating people’s student status even when they’ve been in good standing at their schools.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:08] What do we know about how many students have had their visas revoked, maybe even face deportation, both nationally and here in the Bay Area, California?
Tyche Hendricks [00:03:19] The latest numbers that I have at UC Berkeley, there have been 21 students, which includes undergrads, grad students, and also recent graduates who have still permission to be getting some practical experience here after they graduate. 21 of them have had their visas revoked. I would say there’s definitely over 100 in California and the number keeps growing. And there could be, I mean, there’s at least 600 maybe. above, well above a thousand nationwide.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:56] You’ve also reported on an instance of two students pushing back, two international students pushing back via two separate lawsuits. Who are these students and what do we know about them?
Tyche Hendricks [00:04:07] We don’t know a lot about them because they are scared that they could be targeted for retaliation, including potentially being arrested by ICE and detained and put into deportation proceedings. So they filed their lawsuits as, you know, Student Doe #1 and Student Doe #2. What we know is that one is at a college in Orange County, another one’s in the Inland Empire in a university there. and that they are both from Muslim-majority countries. They have not been involved in any activism. They each had a misdemeanor traffic issue on their record. I think in at least one of those cases, the government knew about it when they issued the student visa, so it wasn’t a surprise. And so this kind of came out of the blue for these students. And they’ve sued ICE, the Department of Homeland Security in federal court in the los angeles area and they’ve said like this is unlawful that you have terminated our student status when you know there’s no there’s no basis for it we’ve complied with all the terms of our student visas .
Alan Montecillo [00:05:17] What happened to their student visa status?
Tyche Hendricks [00:05:20] You know, it’s a little complicated system here. But basically, the State Department issues the student visa that says, you have permission to come into our country and go to a university here. And then based on that, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is sort of the police agency within. Homeland Security that’s tracking people inside the country has a big database of students. It’s called SEVIS. And universities have to put information in there to show that the students are complying with the terms of being an international student here. Now, in this case, ICE has come in and terminated their records in this database, basically saying, you don’t have student status. and that then makes them potentially deportable.
Alan Montecillo [00:06:15] Understandably Student Doe #1, Student Doe #2 not talking to the media, but I know you spoke with their lawyer What can you tell me about what he said and what’s being alleged here?
Tyche Hendricks [00:06:26] So I spoke with Khaled Alrabe, who is a Berkeley-based attorney with the National Immigration Project. He’s representing both of these students who filed suits. To be clear, these are not class action suits that would cover lots of other people as well. They’re just in these particular cases, but they want to be restored as students so that they don’t have to fear deportation.
Khaled Alrabe [00:06:50] We’re the first to file lawsuit is many forthcoming, and this should be viewed in the context of the larger kind of environment we’re in.
Tyche Hendricks [00:06:57] He says, you know, it’s been very alarming, very abrupt all across the country, these student visas getting revoked, and that it really should be a concern for everyone.
Khaled Alrabe [00:07:09] These terminations are unlawful. They entered on visas, valid visas. They have been in compliance with their student status.
Tyche Hendricks [00:07:18] And he said, you know, they’re trying to figure out a pattern for who’s being targeted. Some of the students have been, you know, politically active against Israel’s war in Gaza. Some of them have had minor infractions, misdemeanors like these two students. But it seems like a lot of these students are from Muslim-majority countries, the Middle East, South Asia, Muslim- majority countries in Africa. so you know, that’s starting to show up as a pattern that is concerning.
Alan Montecillo [00:07:50] Have ICE or the State Department said anything about this case?
Tyche Hendricks [00:07:55] I reached out to both, and ICE did not respond to my request for comment. The State Department did send a statement that said they have zero tolerance for non-citizens who violate U.S. laws, quote, those who break the law, including students, may face visa refusal, visa revocation, and or deportation. And they also said that they revoke visas every day and that they do it in order to keep America safe.
Alan Montecillo [00:08:46] Tyche, another part of this story, of course, is the role of universities themselves. What are these schools doing or not doing as their students are having visas revoked or are even facing deportation, possibly?
Tyche Hendricks [00:08:59] Public universities have to comply with California’s law about protecting people’s information, and they are clear that they’re going to do that. They also have legal resources available for immigrant students. But beyond that, they’ve been pretty circumspect, I would say. And they haven’t been willing to talk to me or the press generally because they are under a lot of pressure, Alan. The Trump administration has suspended or halted research grants that are, you know, federal funds that go to a lot of universities. And they’ve initiated investigations of universities, so there’s a lot of pressure on colleges and universities around California and across the country.
Alan Montecillo [00:09:44] So if there’s not strong pushback from universities, what kind of pushback or resistance is out there right now?
Tyche Hendricks [00:09:53] I spoke with Zahra Billoo, the executive director of the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Zahra Billoo [00:10:00] We have been on watch concerned about more abductions, as we saw with Mahmoud Khalil.
Tyche Hendricks [00:10:07] She was on her way to Stanford to do a know your rights training with students there.
Zahra Billoo [00:10:13] So we have been receiving inquiries from other visa holders, as well as, by the way, from U.S. citizens who are asking, could they be next? What do they need to do and how can they stay safe?
Tyche Hendricks [00:10:26] One thing that she said that I thought was pretty interesting is that from their perspective, they feel like people who are putting themselves in the public eye have kind of more protection in a way from the public awareness of their cases. And keeping your head down, she feels, is in some ways possibly even riskier than being public.
Zahra Billoo [00:10:52] There is this fear, right, of if I come out, if I identify myself, will I be found? Our advocacy has been to remind people that safety happens in public, safety happens in community, and that for the students who have found the best advocacy nationally, it’s because they remained in public.
Alan Montecillo [00:11:11] So Tyche, what happens next with these two students in California who have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration?
Tyche Hendricks [00:11:20] Their suits are in federal court, the central district of California, which is based in Los Angeles. And they will have hearings, initial hearings, and then their cases will be heard. You know, they may be looking for some kind of a temporary stay or restraining order to be put in place to protect them from deportation while the case goes forward. We haven’t gotten to that point yet. I don’t believe that there’s any hearings calendared so far.
Alan Montecillo [00:11:48] Certainly, you know, many immigrants are experiencing this climate of fear that the Trump administration has created. I mean, we’ve talked about this a little bit. The administration is willing to go very, very far in order to deport people that things shouldn’t be here, including even people with green cards. You know, beyond just student visa holders, what do you think the spillover effects of cases like this are having on immigrants of all statuses?
