The ACLU of Oregon, Innovation Law Lab, and Nelson Smith LLP filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Ph.D. student at Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis who had his F-1 student immigration status unlawfully and abruptly terminated on April 4, 2025, with no specified reason as to why.
Despite having never committed a crime or traffic violation in the United States or elsewhere, the OSU student was notified that due to the termination of his student status, he is “expected to depart the United States immediately.” The lawsuit asks the court to reinstate this student’s F-1 student status to allow him to continue his studies and avoid detention and deportation. The sudden and unjust termination of the OSU student’s F-1 status violates his due process rights, as the government is required by law to provide him with advance notice and a meaningful opportunity to respond.
Not only was the client unilaterally stripped of his status and denied due process rights as it violates the law, the critical research he was working on has been halted. The student is a citizen of Mexico and a wildlife and conservation scientist. Until the termination of his student visa, he was pursuing his Ph.D. in Rangeland Ecology and Management in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Oregon State University. His research focused on the restoration of livestock ranchlands in Oregon that have been impacted by wildfires — a persistent problem in the state.
The Trump administration’s sudden revocation of the visas and immigration status of our client and hundreds of university students across the country, including multiple universities in Oregon, is part of a mass scale and series of executive actions targeting immigrants and academic institutions.
The lawsuit also states that the government is required to have grounds in order to terminate a student status, and that the revocation of an F-1 visa alone is not sufficient grounds to terminate student status. To legally terminate student status, the student, for example, must fail to take full courses of study, engage in unauthorized employment, or be convicted of a violent crime. None of those situations exist in this case, thus there is no basis for termination.
