Courtesy of Oregon Public Broadcasing
As of April 23, 23 college students in Oregon have had their visas terminated, forcing them to leave the country within 15 days or face arrest and deportation. At least 1,818 students nationwide have had their legal status terminated since late March as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration and political activism among foreign-born residents.
Visa revocations have occurred at over 270 separate institutions, spanning both public research universities and small liberal arts colleges. On at least four campuses, plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have appeared and detained students without any formal criminal charges — and in some instances, without any notice that their visas were terminated.
The terminations have hit higher-ed institutions across Oregon. As of April 23, two current students and a recent graduate at Portland State University, four current students at the University of Oregon (UO), thirteen at Oregon State (OSU) and three at Portland Community Colleges are confirmed to have had their student visas cancelled. On April 21, a federal judge ordered the government to restore visa status for two students from UO and OSU, issuing a temporary restraining order against their deportation.
On March 28, UO was the first college in Oregon to have a visa cancelled by the current administration. A week later, on April 8, three more visas at UO were terminated in a second wave that struck campuses across the state. On April 10, UO administration sent an email to students, faculty and staff addressing the cancellations.
“These terminations were discovered during a routine and proactive visa status check, and the university was neither notified in advance nor involved in any of the decisions regarding their individual cases,” the administration wrote.“The university is also reviewing the federal international student database daily to monitor for any further unannounced visa changes. We are committed to handling this matter with care and respect for the students’ privacy.”
In response to the situation, several hundred students at UO gathered in protest on April 11 to demand greater protections for foreign-born students.
The ongoing wave of cancellations has led to reports of fear and self-censorship among students dependent on visas or green cards. Dr. Alfredo Burlando, an associate professor of economics at UO, provided The Mossy Log insight into the UO community’s reaction to the revocations in an April 17 email statement.
“There is palpable concern among students and faculty, and real-life consequences are being felt. Graduate students, including ones I meet with, have been forced to change dissertation plans as we are currently advising international students NOT to travel to their countries to conduct field work,” Burlando wrote.
In the last few weeks, several scholars without U.S. citizenship have had their visas revoked. According to Burlando, the atmosphere of concern extends beyond students.
“I have had many distressing conversations with colleagues in various departments who currently are on visa or a ‘simple’ green card, and are worried that their writing (which sometimes touches on issues that the current administration finds reproachable) will put them in the cross-hairs of the current administration,” he said.
As of April 23, no student visas at Lewis & Clark have been affected. Similar to other colleges and universities across the nation, school administrators now continually check the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) — the web-based system that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) uses to maintain information on student visas — for any status changes. Brian White, associate dean of students and director of the International Students and Scholars program at LC, discussed how the terminations have impacted his office.
“What’s been happening over the last couple of weeks is that the government has been, with no warning or explanation, terminating international student SEVIS records, and there’s no obvious notification to the school. We’re going on several times a day on that system to check and see, ‘Has that happened to any student here?’” White said, knocking on the wooden table. “So far, it has not.”
Colleges and universities nationwide have decried the Trump administration’s lack of communication regarding its grounds for terminating visas. According to White, the SEVIS system contains a dropdown menu where users must provide a reason for a visa termination. In White’s opinion, when the DHS cancelled student visas, the options chosen provided little clarification.
“A lot of the initial reasons were just changed to ‘other’, so very uninformative about why that’s happened,” White said.
Since the terminations, several lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration by students who have had their visas terminated. Across multiple suits — including one filed by the OSU student who had their visa restored— lawyers state the reason given for the termination was “individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked,” despite the students lacking any criminal history.
In early March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the use of an artificial intelligence “Catch and Revoke” program that scans social media accounts, news sources, lawsuits and other materials to locate foreign-born students and cancel their visas. According to an exclusive report from Axios, senior Department of State officials claim one purpose of the program is to cancel visas of foreign nationals who “support Hamas or other designated terror groups.”
The program also finds students with disciplinary or criminal records. To launch the program, federal officials examined 100,000 student visas since October 2023 to see if any visas had been revoked because of arrest or suspension.
“We found literally zero visa revocations during the Biden administration,” a federal official told Axios, “… which suggests a blind eye attitude toward law enforcement.”
It is unclear whether some of the recent cancellations resulted from the “Catch and Revoke” program.
In an interview with the Mossy Log, an anonymous senior international student provided his perspective. According to him, some students feel torn between the life they have built in the US and the policies targeting their residency.
“You can be 15 years as a student living in the U.S., but because you are on a non-immigrant visa those 15 years don’t count to our residency. You know, you can be an active member of the community, you can feel like you come in(to) the new community or (that) the new city that you’re moving in(to) is your home,” he said.
Student visas are a part of a special class of non-immigration visas, meaning time spent in the US does not count toward an application for permanent residency.
Colleges and universities across the US have instructed international students to remain in the country over the summer, after green card and visa holders have recently been denied entry and even detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Most international students and alumni, soon to be alumni, we’ve been advised not to leave the country basically because 100% of reentry is not assured,” he said. “But at the same time, depending (on) many factors that have to do (with) what your affiliation is with different school organizations, what your political ideology is, what your social media activity is, what your job is, you can be grounds for automatic denial, and even the partition on the border, which is really scary.”
The recent crackdown on immigration has led to concerns over potential First Amendment violations, with some claiming the termination of some visas violated free political expression.
“The new policies, they curtail the ability that we have as scholars, but also as general people to share and express our viewpoint, share experiences regarding political stances, ideological stances, either on campus, within the protest (or) on social media or within the classroom,” the student said.
On April 22, White sent an email out to students with visas, providing the college’s next steps after administrators met with an immigration attorney.
“LC will arrange and pay for an initial consultation with her for any international student whose visa is revoked or SEVIS record terminated. David explained that LC has shared guidelines for campus visits by ICE and these have been on the website since early this semester. If any student sees an ICE agent on campus, they should immediately report that to Campus Safety,” the email read.
David Reese is vice president, chief of staff, general counsel, and board secretary for the college.
In the wake of the terminations, many students have sought support from both the administration and the community at large. Savannah Bishop ’25, president of the International Students of Lewis & Clark, has been working to address student concerns.
“We’ve definitely gotten a lot of student feedback and student requests for support and help,” Bishop said. “Of course, we’re trying to do that. It’s just a very hard situation to navigate. It’s super dependent on factors that are out of ISLC’s control.”
According to both White and Bishop, some affected students have not felt supported by domestic students.
“I think that people should be aware that students and faculty in this community are really struggling and could be removed just for being who they are,” Bishop said.
White reflected on how students could create a stronger support system for impacted students.
“I would love to think of ways to move more of the American students to, you know, check in with their international peers,” White said.
About the Author
