Two international Carnegie Mellon University graduate students, whose ability to study in the U.S. was terminated under a crackdown by the Trump administration, testified Tuesday in federal court as they sought to restore their status and complete their education.
The students said their appearance in a Downtown Pittsburgh courtroom marked the first time they had left their apartments since their student status was revoked in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security uses to monitor and track information on foreign scholars.
They are no longer allowed to attend class under the revocation.
The students’ lawyer, Adrian Roe, initially showed up in U.S. District Court without his clients because he was fearful they might be deported.
The men — Aryaman Shandilya and Pratik Adhikari — were identified only by pseudonym initials in a lawsuit filed last week against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
In the complaint, filed Monday, Roe requested the reinstatement of his clients’ records in the federal tracking system, which would return them to a lawful status, necessary for them to continue their studies.
At the hearing Tuesday, Roe sought a temporary restraining order to force the government to make the change.
But lawyers for the U.S. government argued they could not defend the case without knowing who the plaintiffs are.
“We have no information,” said Samantha Stewart, a government lawyer. “We’ve been totally hamstrung.”
U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV also requested the plaintiffs identify themselves before the court.
“How can the government defend against a claim when (it) doesn’t know who the claimants are?” the judge asked Roe, saying previous student visa cases Roe cited in the complaint included the identification of the plaintiffs.
Roe told the court both students were waiting in his Downtown Pittsburgh office on the Boulevard of the Allies, roughly 10 blocks away, and he could bring them in within 10 minutes to testify as long as they wouldn’t be detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on the way to the federal courthouse on Grant Street.
Stickman asked Roe if he had any specific concerns about ICE.
“(I) don’t want to make loose accusations,” Roe replied.
Stickman said he would make sure the students received “safe harbor” between Roe’s office and the courthouse so they could testify.
He forbade ICE from arresting the plaintiffs as they walked to the courthouse and later issued an order barring Homeland Security and ICE from beginning deportation proceedings.
“The plaintiffs in this case are to be brought to court without obstruction,” Stickman decreed. “(I’m) not going to let anybody get taken out of my courtroom — you can rest assured on that.”
Temporary reprieve
Like other foreign students across the country who have been targeted, Shandilya and Adhikari had minor brushes with the law.
The lawsuit, however, said the interactions with law enforcement did not amount to anything serious enough to warrant termination of their student status.
In the cases of his clients, one case was expunged and the other was dismissed, Roe said.
Shandilya was born in New Delhi, India, and he came to the U.S. in August with an F-1 visa to study for his master’s degree in artificial intelligence engineering at CMU.
His student status was terminated April 3, and his visa was revoked April 8. He was identified by the pseudonym C.S. in the lawsuit.
“I have not even stepped out of the house except today,” Shandilya said, citing safety concerns.
During the Tuesday hearing, he recounted when he had been taken to jail following an incident during the early hours of Nov. 16 in South Side Flats, when he had a “few drinks” and was detained by a police officer for public intoxication and disorderly behavior.
But, after Shandilya’s hearing Dec. 5, charges were dropped and his record was expunged.
Since his SEVIS status and F-1 visa have been revoked, he hasn’t been able to attend class.
“They are no longer allowed to teach me in person,” Shandilya said.
He testified he has a for-credit internship set up for the summer, which he will not be able to participate in with his current situation.
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Not completing the internship, he said, would harm his job prospects.
So far, Shandilya has completed 96 credits and will need three more courses before his planned graduation after the fall 2025 term, but he might not get to walk across the stage to receive his diploma.
“(It’s) unclear if I will ever be able to complete my degree at CMU,” he said.
Shandilya had decided to apply only to Carnegie Mellon when looking at all options in his intended field of study.
“My first priority has always been CMU,” he said.
Arbitrary action?
For Adhikari, the U.S. has been been home since August 2017 after he left Nepal to get his bachelor’s degree at the University of Mississippi. He graduated in 2021 and went by the pseudonym D.T. in the lawsuit.
Adhikari is approaching the end of his first year in the master’s of business administration program at CMU’s Tepper School of Business.
In 2019, while driving in Tennessee, he was pulled over for a traffic violation as he merged onto a highway. His case was dismissed, and he paid court fees of $71.07, according to the lawsuit.
Adhikari found out about his SEVIS status termination April 8. Just like Shandilya, Adhikari hadn’t left his apartment until Tuesday per lawyer’s request for testimony.
He’s already paid for classes in full for this spring, and he has a for-credit internship set up for the summer.
“I’m not able to complete that internship,” he told the court.
As of Tuesday, Adhikari has not received any communication as to whether his visa has been revoked.
Last week, another CMU international student, Jayson Ma, said he had his student visa terminated.
Ma, who is from China, had a DUI in 2023. His lawyer said Ma successfully completed Allegheny County’s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition and had the charges expunged.
Ma told TribLive he wasn’t certain he was targeted because of the DUI. He has not received any official notice from Homeland Security. Instead, the only information he had received was from Carnegie Mellon.
“I don’t really exactly know why it was terminated, and it wasn’t explained to me,” Ma said.
Next steps
At Tuesday’s hearing, both sides sparred over who has jurisdiction over the students’ status in the federal tracking system.
The Department of Homeland Security and ICE maintain SEVIS, but the State Department is responsible for issuing — and revoking — visas, according to Adam Fischer, another government lawyer.
“That is not for the courts to have any say in,” Fischer said.
Fischer suggested the students to reach out to Carnegie Mellon officials regarding their statuses to try to reverse the termination and appeal to an immigration judge.
Roe, however, argued the students’ statuses were terminated arbitrarily without notice and without due process.
Stickman did not rule on Roe’s request for restoration of his clients’ student status in the government system.
“There could be arbitrariness or capriciousness in relation to (the) change of status,” Stickman said.
He scheduled a hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction for April 25.