Trump administration's crackdown on student visas hits Florida universities

Clara-Sophia Daly, Miami Herald on Apr 14, 2025

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The Trump administration has canceled the visas of dozens of international students across Florida as part of a sweeping crackdown on college campuses across the country.

Florida State University is the latest university in the state to confirm that several international students’ visas have been revoked. The university told the Miami Herald Monday that three students have lost visas.

So far in Florida, the Herald has confirmed that at least 29 student visas have been terminated, including 18 at Florida International University and 8 at the University of Florida. But the number is likely higher.

In the past week, the Trump administration has revoked the status of upwards of 1,000, and likely many more, international students. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been going into the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the government database that tracks international students’ compliance with their student visa, to cancel some students’ statuses, a move lawyers say is illegal if the student was abiding by the terms of their visa.

Many visas are now being revoked from students who have never been involved in political activity but have some record of coming into contact with law enforcement — even if they were never charged or convicted of a crime, according to attorneys.

The University of South Florida also told the Miami Herald that there are students at their university as well as recent graduates that have experienced a change in their visa status recently, but they did not say how many. A student’s status can be changed without notice or explanation to the university, a representative from University of South Florida told the Herald.

“It’s a purge of students. It’s more and more each day,” said Jesse Bless, an attorney that has specialized in immigration for two decades and worked for the Department of Justice.

“The government isn’t explaining why or under what provision of law they are allowed to do this,” said Bless.

Shaz Ashgar, a Florida immigration attorney, hypothesized that the recent revocation of student statuses in Florida may be the federal government retaliating against universities that the Trump administration thinks didn’t handle the pro-Palestinian protests appropriately because international students are “big business.”

None of the Florida universities with students who lost their visas have provided reasons for the terminations but the answers might be found in many of the class action lawsuits currently picking up steam around the country.

Class action lawsuits

Across the nation, students have filed class action lawsuits against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, accusing the agency of changing students’ visa statuses illegally. What appears to be a common thread is that many of the students involved in the lawsuits had interactions with law enforcement — many as minor as a speeding or parking ticket, according to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU in Michigan.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly stated that visas will be revoked for foreign students engaged in political activity, and he has also stated that he will use artificial intelligence to go through the criminal records of student who have visas.

Although there have been cases of student visas being revoked for political activity, “99.9 percent will be based on having any encounter with law enforcement, not politics,” said Dustin Baxter, an immigration attorney in Georgia whose firm filed on Friday one of the largest class action lawsuits on behalf of students whose statuses were revoked in SEVIS.

The lawsuit Baxter filed argues that terminating a student’s SEVIS is illegal because the students in his lawsuit did not break the law. Many of the students were never charged or convicted of a crime, or had their cases dismissed.

“What is concerning is the way they are targeting all kinds of people without consideration for harm or the law,” said Baxter.

He said his inboxes have been overflowing, with as many as 500 inquiries from students who want to be represented.

He believes this is occurring because the Department of Government Efficiency got access to SEVIS and used an AI process to pinpoint anyone with encounters with law enforcement.

“This is a new low for the Trump Administration, to do something like this to students who have dedicated years of their life to education. It’s just insane, it’s craziness,” said Baxter.

“It is clearly illegal.”

These students may face immediate detention and deportation, according to the lawsuit, and lawyers say many of the students they represent are so fearful they do not want to leave their home.

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