ATLANTA (Diya TV) — In a major win for international students, a federal judge in Georgia has reinstated the student visa status of 133 individuals—many of them Indian nationals—after a controversial move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) attempted to strip them of their legal standing in the U.S.

The April 18 ruling by Judge Victoria M. Calvert of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia temporarily blocks ICE from continuing deportation proceedings against these students. The decision follows a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia and other advocacy groups, which challenged the legality and due process of the visa revocations.

The lawsuit accuses ICE of unlawfully terminating the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records of students who had not committed any visa violations. SEVIS is an online database used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to track international students and exchange visitors on F-1, M-1, and J-1 visas.

According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), nearly half of the 327 visa revocation cases they reviewed involved Indian nationals. Most of the affected students were enrolled under F-1 visas and participating in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program—a temporary employment authorization pathway critical for many STEM graduates aiming to transition to H-1B work visas.

ICE has terminated 4,736 SEVIS records since January 20, as per AILA data. The majority of these terminations were linked to minor infractions—ranging from traffic violations and school policy breaches to students being listed as victims in domestic violence cases. Only two of the reviewed cases were explicitly associated with political activism, AILA noted.

In court documents, the ACLU argued that these actions were not only abrupt but coercive. “DHS’s act of unlawfully terminating SEVIS records appears to be designed to coerce students, including each Plaintiff, into abandoning their studies and ‘self-deporting,’ despite not violating their status,” the lawsuit stated.

One of the plaintiffs, referred to as “Jane Doe #12,” reportedly had no criminal or disciplinary records but still had her SEVIS record terminated without warning. Some students say they weren’t even notified by their schools, bypassing the standard communication protocol that institutions typically follow when updating SEVIS statuses.

“The Constitution protects everyone on American soil,” said Akiva Freidlin, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Georgia. “The Trump administration cannot ignore due process to unjustifiably threaten students with the loss of immigration status, arrest, and deportation.”

Government attorneys argued that granting relief could infringe on the executive branch’s control over immigration policy. However, the court disagreed, finding merit in the plaintiffs’ claims that their rights to due process were violated.

Students with terminated SEVIS records are considered out of status, which invalidates their F-1 visa privileges, including OPT and STEM OPT participation. A terminated record can only be resolved by leaving the country and returning with a new I-20 or applying for reinstatement within the U.S. To verify SEVIS status, students are advised to log into M-Passport or similar institutional platforms. An “Active” or “Initial” status confirms that the record remains valid.

The court’s decision temporarily halts ICE’s actions, but a final ruling is still pending. For now, the 133 students involved in the lawsuit can continue their studies or work without fear of immediate deportation.