Visas

A Tufts University student from Turkey returned to Boston on Saturday, one day after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention center where she was held for over six weeks.

Upon arrival at Logan Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a “very difficult” period.

“In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,” she said. “But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.”

The State Department has announced a major change to the Visa Interview Waiver Program, commonly referred to as the "Dropbox" process, reverting eligibility requirements to pre-pandemic standards.

The move, which was made official on Thursday, means that many nonimmigrant visa holders who once qualified for interview waivers may now have to undergo in-person interviews at U.S. consulates.

President-elect Donald Trump was asked by a reporter on Tuesday night at his New Year's Eve party, "Why'd you change your mind on H-1B visas?" and he responded in part, "I didn't change my mind."

An H-1B visa is a tool in an immigration program designed for highly skilled workers and the Biden administration said this month that it plans to speed up applications in an overhaul of the program, and that it would punish companies that may be abusing it.

The Trump administration on Friday restored thousands of visa registrations for foreign students who had either a minor or dismissed legal infraction.

The Justice Department announced the decision in federal court, according to the news outlet Politico.

The administration last month abruptly decided to remove foreign students from a federal database used by universities to track foreign students. 

Students were concerned they lost their immigration...

In a sudden reversal on Friday, the Trump administration announced it will reinstate thousands of foreign students to active status after their records were terminated from a database earlier this month.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the sweeping student visa reversal in federal court, following weeks of mounting legal pressure.

The Trump administration is restoring the legal status of international students who had their records terminated in recent weeks, a government attorney said Friday at a hearing. 

Elizabeth D. Kurlan, an attorney for the Justice Department, said during the hearing in the Northern District of California in Oakland that records for international students will be reactivated for the time being, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement crafts a new policy that will “provide a framework for status record termination.” 

President Donald Trump’s administration lashed back at Harvard University on Wednesday, with the Department of Homeland Security cutting over $2.7 million in grants and threatening to cancel all student visas, according to a press release obtained exclusively by The Free Press. The move comes two days after Harvard refused to agree to a series of demands by the administration, and Harvard’s president Alan Garber said that the university “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights.”

The Trump administration has begun a new wave of visa revocations for international students studying at American universities.

Universities across America said over the weekend that the visas of several international students were revoked. It's unclear if the visa revocations are associated with anti-Israel actions by the affected international students.

The Harvard International Office announced Sunday that three students and two recent graduates from the university have had their student visas revoked amid the Trump administration’s crackdown.

The office did not release the students’ names and said it has referred them to legal counsel. The reasoning for the revocation is unknown, but the office said it was made during a routine records review. 

Colleges around the country are reporting some of their international students’ visas are being revoked unexpectedly, expressing alarm over what appears to be a new level of government scrutiny.

Visas can be canceled for a number of reasons, but college leaders say the government has been quietly terminating students’ legal residency status with little notice to students or schools. That marks a shift from past practice and leaves students vulnerable to detention and deportation.