Speeding tickets. Public drunkenness. Illegal gambling.
A review of lawsuits filed by dozens of student visa holders nationwide shows the Trump administration has set its sights on international students with a criminal record — no matter how small.
Initially, the administration’s efforts to deport foreign students appeared to be focused on participants in pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the country.
But the breadth of cases paints a different picture, one that suggests the administration is targeting foreign students regardless of whether they took part in pro-Palestinian protests or engaged in acts criticized by some as antisemitic.
Instead, the administration appears to be going after foreign students more generally, using relatively minor criminal charges in some cases to seek their removal.
Many of the students suing say their charges shouldn’t be held against them because they were dropped or expunged. Some have argued offenses were too minor to justify losing their legal status, while others say they haven’t received any explanation.
Here’s a snapshot of the lawsuits proceeding across the country:
Public drunkenness and a traffic violation: Aryaman Shandilya and Pratik Adhikari, both students at Carnegie Mellon University, are suing in a joint lawsuit. Shandilya was charged with disorderly conduct and public drunkenness but says the charges were later withdrawn. Adhikari says their only run-in with the law was a traffic violation for not moving over for an emergency vehicle, which was dismissed after paying $71 in court costs. A judge has temporarily blocked the administration from deporting the duo as their case proceeds. Possessing a gambling device: An anonymous student who graduated from an institution in Texas last year and now works in Ohio under the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which allows students to temporarily work in the U.S. in a role related to their area of study, is suing. He says he was previously charged with possessing a gambling device, but the district attorney later dismissed the case. Hotel mix-up: An anonymous Chinese national who earned a Ph.D. at a Chicago-area university and now works under OPT acknowledges he was charged with unlawfully photographing defense installations. But the man says the incident was a mix-up, and he had unknowingly booked a hotel in a restricted area of Fort Wainwright while visiting Alaska with his wife. After an officer let them through the gate the first night, court documents show they were arrested when trying to reenter the next day. The man says he fully cooperated and the case was dismissed. Disorderly persons offense: An anonymous student from an unspecified Asian country working in Jersey City under OPT says their only run-in with the law was an arrest on a municipal disorderly persons charge, which prosecutors later dismissed.No matter the background, the lawsuits tell a similar story. Without warning, the administration terminated a student’s record in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the online database schools and the government use to track student visa holders’ status.
The record was updated to note they had failed to “maintain status” because of a criminal record.
As a result, many of the students say they have been unable to attend classes and are at risk of losing scholarships or career opportunities. Their challenges claim the terminations violate the 5th Amendment’s due process protections.
“Plaintiffs are incorrect,” the Justice Department pushed back in one lawsuit. “Plaintiffs do not have a protected interest in their SEVIS record and, even if they did, the process available to them satisfies the Fifth Amendment.”
Many students are suing individually, leading to a patchwork of lawsuits around the country. But some students have joined together, including a group of 133 students who sued in Georgia and is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The loss of timely academic progress alone is sufficient to establish irreparable harm,” U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, an appointee of former President Biden, wrote in her ruling ordering those students’ SEVIS records be temporarily reinstated as the case proceeds. “Additionally, all Plaintiffs report high levels of stress and anxiety resulting from the uncertainty around their futures,” Calvert continued. “If Plaintiffs cannot work or study, they cannot remain in the United States legally and will therefore be subjected to removal proceedings or forced to return to their native countries on their own.”
But not all students are emerging successful.
U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, a Trump appointee, late last week rejected a similar request launched by seven international students studying at universities in Indiana.
“While the Court understands the turmoil that Plaintiffs are experiencing because of the sudden and unexpected termination of their F-1 student status in SEVIS, Plaintiffs have not demonstrated irreparable harm to warrant the extraordinary exercise of judicial power required for the Court to issue a temporary restraining order,” Hanlon wrote.
Welcome to The Gavel, The Hill’s weekly courts newsletter from Ella Lee ([email protected]) and Zach Schonfeld ([email protected]). Email us tips, or reach out to us on X (@ByEllaLee, @ZachASchonfeld) or Signal (elee.03, zachschonfeld.48). Sign up here or in the box below.
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The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the The Gavel newsletter SubscribeDOJ to the rescue in Trump civil cases
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is coming to President Trump’s rescue in some of the most prominent civil lawsuits against him.
The department is leveraging the Westfall Act, a 1988 law aimed at protecting federal employees from tort lawsuits. It allows DOJ to step in and substitute the government as the defendant when a lawsuit concerns an employee’s official conduct — including the president’s.
Trump’s Justice Department recently took the first step to leverage the act in advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit and several consolidated suits over Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
If successful, it would leave Trump off the hook for any damages and instead foot the bill to taxpayers.
“I don’t need to tell you that Robbie and I are ready for the fight, do I?” Carroll responded to the news in a Substack post last week, referring to her lawyer, Robbie Kaplan. “Hell Robbie and the brilliant Carroll Team are ready to take on all 10,000 lawyers of the DOJ!”
If you’re having déjà vu, don’t worry, you’re not crazy. This exact battle has played out before.
Near the end of Trump’s first term, his Justice Department similarly advanced a Westfall Act certification in Carroll’s defamation suit, which concerns Trump’s denials that he sexually assaulted the columnist in the 1990s.
The battle tied up the case for nearly three years, including a lengthy detour to the local D.C. court system to determine the scope of the city’s employment laws (yes, being president really makes you subject to D.C. labor regulations!). Biden’s Justice Department ultimately abandoned the gambit and left Trump to head to trial, where a jury ordered him to pay $83.3 million.
Now back in the White House, his Justice Department is trying again as Trump appeals the verdict. A three-judge panel on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will consider the argument at oral arguments in June.
The government made a similar move in a series of consolidated civil lawsuits seeking to hold Trump responsible for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
In March, the government sought to sub in as the defendant and certified that Trump was “acting in the scope of his federal office or employment at the time of the incidents.”
The civil suits are the only remaining legal effort to hold the president accountable for the riot, after two criminal cases against Trump tied to Jan. 6 crumbled last year.
Whether Trump remains personally on the hook will depend on whether U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, an appointee of former President Obama, is convinced that Trump was acting in his official capacity as president that day.
The judge was already weighing the question in a motion to dismiss filed by Trump’s personal lawyers, but he paused those proceedings to weigh the substitution issues. Briefings will conclude in June.
SCOTUS’s teacher grant decision ripples through lower courts
A little-known law is thwarting challenges to Trump’s freezing of federal grants after the Supreme Court paved the way for its use.
The Tucker Act, passed in 1887, requires certain lawsuits implicating a $10,000-or-more contract with the federal government to go through the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, not the federal district courts.
The Supreme Court emphasized the statute in a 5-4 emergency ruling earlier this month that allowed the Trump administration to block $65 million in teacher development grants.
Now it’s having ripple effects in other cases.
The Trump administration has latched on to the ruling to shut down legal battles over its sweeping federal aid freezes, saying those, too, are Tucker Act claims being brought in the wrong courts.
The Justice Department has cited the Supreme Court’s decision in at least 10 cases, telling judges they should reject plaintiffs’ requests for injunctions or reconsider ones already issued.
The administration has already found success, including when a judge dissolved his previous order blocking a freeze in fair housing grants.
“This decision should not be read as an endorsement of the brusque and seemingly insensitive way in which the terminations were announced,” cautioned U.S. District Judge Richard Sterns, an appointee of former President Clinton who serves in Boston.
The judge added that “the court is merely deferring (as it must) to the Supreme Court's unmistakable directive that, for jurisdictional purposes, the proper forum for this case is the Court of Federal Claims.”
But not all judges think it's so cut and dry.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, an appointee of former President Reagan, rejected the notion in his ruling Tuesday that the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle Voice of America and affiliated news services were likely unlawful.
In the case on which the justices ruled, the plaintiffs relied on rights contained in actual grant agreements, the judge said.
“Here, by contrast, the source of the Networks’ rights is not rooted in the grant agreements with USAGM — grants are involved only as a vehicle to distribute congressionally appropriated funds to the Networks because Congress passed laws directing USAGM to provide grants to specific grantees, and appropriated funds for those grantees specifically,” Lamberth said.
In a decision blocking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from clawing back billions of dollars in Biden-era climate grants, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, said that the real test for deciding whether a claim falls under the Tucker Act is whether it “is at its essence a contract claim.”
She acknowledged that the government “heavily” relied on the Supreme Court’s ruling but said the justices’ own caveat applied to the case at hand — that a district court retains jurisdiction even if invalidating an agency’s action could potentially lead to the disbursement of funds.
The judge also cited D.C. Circuit precedent rejecting the “broad” notion that any mention of a contract means it immediately falls under the statute’s umbrella.
“It cannot be that the contract’s authority trumps the agency’s formal regulations and a federal statute,” Chutkan said.
PETITIONS PILE
Earlier this month, we highlighted how the justices again and again relisted a petition seeking to block a sacred Apache religious site, Flat Oak, from being converted into a copper mine.
We laid out three theories: (1) The court is preparing a summary opinion, (2) someone is taking a long time to draft a dissent, or (3) the justices are intentionally delaying their decision for strategic reasons.
Developments in the last few days suggest the third theory may be the winner.
Before the U.S. Forest Service transfers the land, it must publish a final environmental impact statement. On Thursday, the agency provided the required 60-day advance notice that such a statement is on the way.
Luke Goodrich, a Becket attorney representing Apache Stronghold, which is suing to block the land transfer on religious grounds, told the justices that the notice confirms an urgent need to get involved.
“Until now, there may have been some doubt about the government’s intent to move forward with the transfer and destruction of Oak Flat,” Goodrich wrote. “But this notice removes all doubt: the government intends to move forward, and to do so quickly.”
In response, Solicitor General D. John Sauer insisted there was never “any plausible doubt” and that nothing had changed.
We’re also watching two petitions that have been relisted for the first time:
In GHP Management Corporation v. Los Angeles, the justices are being asked to take up a landlord’s Takings Clause challenge to Los Angeles’s eviction moratorium imposed during the pandemic.
And in The Hain Celestial Group v. Palmquist, Whole Foods and Hain Celestial Group are asking the justices to review a lower decision remanding to state court a lawsuit claiming heavy metal contamination in Hain’s baby food caused physical and mental disorders in a toddler.
ORDER LIST
Read the full order list here.
IN: Postal discrimination claim
The Supreme Court took up one new case at its latest closed-door conference. We previewed it in last week’s edition.
The court said it will hear the Justice Department’s appeal of a ruling that allows Lebene Konan, who is Black, to seek damages from the federal government over claims the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) intentionally refused to deliver mail to two addresses she leased because of her race.
In USPS v. Konan, the court will review whether Konan’s lawsuit can proceed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows citizens to seek damages against the federal government in certain circumstances.
The Justice Department contends the lawsuit falls under an exception for lawsuits “arising out of the loss, miscarriage, or negligent transmission of letters or postal matter.”
The case is set to be argued during the court’s next annual term, with arguments likely in the fall.
OUT: Minnesota’s attempt to revive young adult gun ban
In Jacobson v. Worth, the court declined to take up an appeal from Minnesota’s attorney general seeking to revive the state’s ban on young adults aged 18 to 20 receiving public-carry permits.
It’s the latest instance of the justices declining to get involved in another Second Amendment battle after the court last term clarified its recent expansion of the right to bear arms.
But the court continues to sit on petitions challenging Rhode Island’s high-capacity magazine ban and Maryland’s semiautomatic weapon ban.
SIDEBAR
The saga of Trump’s hush money criminal case isn’t over yet. Oral arguments in Trump’s appeal of his efforts to remove it to federal court have been scheduled for June 11. Robert Hur — yes, that one — is representing Harvard University in its legal battle with the Trump administration over federal funding. Ace legal reporter Adam Klasfeld and war correspondent Tim Mak launched a new publication, All Rise, covering law and protest in the Trump era. Thomas Windom, one of the lead prosecutors on Trump’s Jan. 6 criminal case, was at the Supreme Court on Monday for his bar admittance. The justices gave Windom a smile as his father, former Alabama Lt. Gov. Steve Windom, who switched from being a Democrat to a Republican in 1997, introduced his son. The AARP emerged victorious in its fight to change the name of the Alien Enemies Act case that has been making headlines at the Supreme Court, A.A.R.P v. Trump. It is now called W.M.M. v. Trump. An AARP spokesperson told us the change “is essential to mitigate any ongoing confusion.” U.S. District Judge James Boasberg is a footnote stickler. He rejected watchdog group American Oversight's latest motion in their lawsuit over "Signalgate" because it violated the court’s local rule on “excessive footnotes.” Only 10 footnotes with no more than 40 aggregate lines of text are allowed.ON THE DOCKET
Don’t be surprised if additional hearings are scheduled throughout the week. But here’s what we’re watching for now:
Today
The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments about whether the energy industry has standing to sue over California's car emissions rule. A federal judge in Boston will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts to deport students based on pro-Palestinian demonstrations. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to Trump’s executive order gutting collective bargaining for federal employees. Two other D.C. federal judges will hold motions hearings in challenges to Trump’s executive orders targeting the law firms Perkins Coie and WilmerHale. A federal judge in San Francisco will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a lawsuit challenging part of Trump’s "Protecting Invasion" executive order, which directs federal agencies to target sanctuary cities. Another San Francisco federal judge will hold a preliminary injunction hearing over the Trump administration’s freezing of funds under a law aimed at ensuring unaccompanied children receive legal counsel in immigration proceedings. A preliminary hearing is scheduled in the criminal case of a man accused of setting fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home.Thursday
A federal judge in Texas will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a lawsuit by three Venezuelan men in immigration custody who were threatened with removal under the Alien Enemies Act. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to the Department of Education’s efforts to advance the Trump administration’s Title VI interpretation.Friday
Luigi Mangione, the alleged shooter of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, is set to be arraigned on federal charges. Ex-Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is set to be sentenced after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. A federal judge in Boston will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in 21 Democratic attorneys general’s challenge to the Education Department’s March layoffs of nearly half its workforce.Monday
Dominion Voting Systems’s defamation case against Newsmax over its 2020 election fraud claims is headed to trial. The Supreme Court will announce orders. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over whether certain laws require children with disabilities to satisfy a uniquely stringent “bad faith or gross misjudgment” standard when seeking relief for education-related discrimination. The justices will also hear oral arguments over which law’s guidelines the military should use when calculating how far back disabled combat veterans can be paid when they claim late compensation.Tuesday
The Supreme Court will hold oral arguments in a case about a mistaken FBI raid. The justices will also hear oral arguments over whether a federal court may certify a class action when some of its members lack any Article III injury. A federal judge in Baltimore will hold a preliminary injunction hearing in a challenge to the EPA’s termination of grant awards over concerns related to waste and diversity, equity and inclusion A federal judge in Washington, D.C., will hold a summary judgment hearing in a challenge to Trump’s proclamation barring migrants from using the Immigration and Nationality Act’s asylum provisions.WHAT WE’RE READING
Politico Magazine’s Ankush Khardori: ‘An Enormous Usurpation’: Inside the Case Against Trump’s Tariffs The Harvard Crimson’s Caroline G. Hennigan and Bradford D. Kimball: Breyer Suggests Criminal Contempt Charges For Trump Officials at HLS Event The Atlantic’s Conor Clark: The Conservative Case for Leaving Harvard Alone E&E News’s Robin Bravender: How Trump’s reg-busting quest tests legal limits Aaron Tang in The New York Times: Will This Conservative Legal Doctrine Undo Trump’s First Months in Office?We’ll be back next Wednesday with additional reporting and insights. In the meantime, keep up with our coverage here.
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