The federal government reactivated immigration statuses for all NYU students affected by the Trump administration’s crackdown on noncitizens, a university administrator told WSN. 

The administrator said some students saw changes to their status on Thursday, while the rest saw their statuses restored on Monday morning. They also confirmed that all NYU affiliates whose legal status changed due to recent federal orders on immigration were students. 

NYU can only see students’ legal status in the country on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System — the main federal database that universities use to keep tabs on noncitizen students — and is unable to tell whether or not individual visas were revoked. Information regarding official visa status is only available to students.

The reversal comes after the federal government began reinstating immigration statuses last week, following dozens of lawsuits claiming that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arbitrarily terminated students’ visas without explanation. At NYU, administrators reported that some students whose immigration statuses were affected had a recorded misdemeanor, such as a traffic violation or jumping a turnstile.

In a statement to a federal court on Friday, ICE said it will no longer revoke visas based strictly on findings from the National Crime Information Center, the database that would flag individuals for minor infractions. However, the department has since said it plans to reframe policies for terminating immigration statuses, warning universities that a continued crackdown on noncitizen students is still in the works. 

Over the past several weeks, the Trump administration has moved to terminate more than 1,500 students’ immigration statuses. At information sessions regarding visa revocations at the university, NYU administrators said only a “low” number of community members had been affected.

Contact Dharma Niles and Yezen Saadah at [email protected].