A federal judge in Pittsburgh on Thursday reinstated — at least temporarily — two international students at Gannon University in Erie who learned this month their status as scholars had been terminated by the Trump administration.
The students — who sued the U.S. attorney general, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday — learned 10 days ago that their status under the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System had been terminated, prohibiting them from continuing their studies.
They are two of hundreds — if not thousands — of international students across the country who in recent weeks were told they were no longer permitted to study in the United States.
Lawsuits like the one in this case are starting to pop up more frequently, said Philadelphia immigration attorney Christopher Casazza, who represents the Gannon students.
“There’s a concentrated effort among immigration attorneys to file these, and file them quickly,” he said.
In the lawsuit in Pittsburgh, Zeel Patel and Vraj Patel, who are from India and are not related, alleged that the termination of their student status strips them of their ability to study in the U.S. and puts them at risk of arrest, detention and deportation.
The lawsuit alleges that Homeland Security’s unlawful termination of their student status “appears to be designed to coerce students, including plaintiff, into abandoning their studies and ‘self-deporting’ despite not violating their status.”
Disorderly conduct charge
Immigration attorneys have said international students are being targeted based on minor run-ins with law enforcement.
“Essentially, anybody who’s ever been fingerprinted is having their SEVIS status revoked,” Casazza said.
In the case Thursday, neither of the students appeared, and no testimony was given. Instead, attorneys presented argument.
According to the lawsuit, Zeel Patel completed an English as a Second Language program at Gannon in 2023 and is now seeking a master’s degree in management sciences and quantitative methods.
She is scheduled to complete the program in May 2026.
Vraj Patel is seeking a bachelor’s degree in information systems and has been studying at Gannon since January 2022.
Both of them received notice this month of their terminations, according to the complaint, because the government said they had been identified in criminal records checks.
According to the lawsuits, the two students each pleaded guilty to a summary count of disorderly conduct in Erie County Common Pleas Court last April. They were each ordered to pay a $221 fine and court costs.
The lawsuit alleges that disorderly conduct, a minor charge, does not qualify under federal law for removal of an international student.
According to the complaint, the only ways a student can fail to maintain their status is if they don’t maintain a full course of study, take an unauthorized job, provide false information to Homeland Security or are convicted of a crime of violence with a potential sentence of more than one year in prison.
“An arrest or a traffic citation is not a basis for termination of SEVIS per DHS’s own regulations,” the lawsuit said.
The complaint alleges that if ICE believes a student is deportable, it has the authority to initiate removal proceedings and go to court.
“However, it cannot misuse SEVIS to circumvent the law, strip students of status and drive them out of the country without process.”
No reason to revoke
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge W. Scott Hardy held an hourlong hearing on Zeel Patel’s motion for a temporary restraining order.
To win the motion, Casazza had to convince the judge that Patel was likely to win on the merits of her case and that without the restraining order she would suffer irreparable harm.
Casazza argued that Zeel Patel had spent more than $30,000 on her American education and has only one year left. To end it now, he said, could damage both her educational and job prospects — not to mention subject her to the constant emotional fear of being picked up by ICE agents.
Paul Skirtich, who represented the government at the hearing, said Patel had not exhausted the administrative remedies provided in the law, and that the lawsuit was premature.
Featured Local Businesses
“She has not presented any request to any federal agency to correct the record in SEVIS,” Skirtich said. “There is a process for her to follow.”
He also argued that there has not yet been any final agency determination of the students’ status.
But Casazza told the judge that the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the termination of a student’s status is the final agency determination, and, since April 15, five other federal district courts have said the same.
Hardy agreed with the plaintiffs, finding there was no regulatory or statutory reason to revoke the students’ status.
He granted the motion, which sought to prohibit the government from terminating Zeel Patel’s status.
The order, which Casazza said applies to both of his clients, will remain in place for 14 days until the court can hear a motion on a preliminary injunction.
In the meantime, both students will be permitted to attend their classes — which Casazza said they had been doing anyway.
Hardy’s order follows another ruling this week by U.S. District Judge William S. Stickman IV in a case involving two Carnegie Mellon University students.
In that case, Stickman did not rule on the students’ request to be reinstated. Instead, he said the government can’t start deportation proceedings pending their motion for a preliminary injunction.
The hearing on that motion is scheduled for April 30.
Lawsuits with ‘legs’
Casazza said it doesn’t matter that two judges in the same jurisdiction ruled differently because each case must be decided on its own set of facts.
“They’re not bound by each other’s decisions,” he said.
He called Stickman’s ruling an “outlier.”
Bruce Antkowiak, who teaches law at Saint Vincent College, said, typically, a court would want to schedule similar cases like this with the same judge to avoid having conflicting decisions.
He suspects they will be consolidated. But ultimately, Antkowiak said he expects there will be a split among the various appellate circuit courts across the country, which means the issue will likely go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“They have to do that so lower courts have some guidance, because right now, they really don’t.”
Casazza is aware of at least seven similar federal lawsuits, with several of them having multiple plaintiffs.
Typically, if an international student has committed a violent crime, ICE takes action to terminate their status quickly, Casazza said, even in previous presidential administrations.
In the cases happening now, though, he believes the vast majority of terminations are for minor crimes or charges that have been expunged.
“That’s why these lawsuits have legs and why these (motions) are getting granted,” Casazza said, “because there is no legitimate basis to deport them.”