Foreign Students in the US: SEVIS, OPT, and Legal Rights

Foreign students in the US are living through the most turbulent policy year in a generation. Total international enrollment reached a record 1,177,766 during the 2024/25 academic year, a 5 percent increase, but new enrollments have since fallen sharply as the Trump administration revoked thousands of visas, terminated student records in the federal tracking database, restricted travel from dozens of countries, and moved to curtail the post-graduation work program that draws many students to American campuses in the first place.¹² Courts have pushed back on some of the most aggressive actions, but the ground under a student visa is less stable than it has been in decades.

Where Enrollment Stands Now

India held the top spot as a sending country in 2024/25 with 363,019 students, up 10 percent, and China remained second at 265,919 despite a 4 percent drop. South Korea, Canada, and Vietnam followed. The fastest-growing origins were Nepal (up 49 percent), Ghana (up 36.5 percent), Vietnam (up 26 percent), and Pakistan (up 20 percent).¹³ Fifty-seven percent studied in STEM, and most attended public institutions.

The record hides a reversal already underway. First-time enrollments fell 7 percent in 2024/25 to 277,118, and graduate numbers dropped 3 percent. Much of the overall growth came from a 21 percent surge in Optional Practical Training participants, who now account for roughly a quarter of all international students.¹³

By fall 2025, the picture had darkened. Total international enrollment fell 1 percent, new enrollments dropped 17 percent, and graduate enrollment declined 12 percent, according to the Institute of International Education’s Fall 2025 Snapshot survey.³ Fifty-seven percent of institutions surveyed reported lower international enrollment, and 96 percent said the visa application process itself — delays and denials — was the main driver. Sixty-eight percent cited U.S. travel restrictions, 67 percent pointed to students feeling unwelcome, and 64 percent named the broader sociopolitical environment.⁴ Seventy-two percent of institutions were offering admitted students spring 2026 deferrals, and 56 percent were offering fall 2026 deferrals.

Visa Revocations and SEVIS Terminations

Starting in the early months of 2025, the administration revoked student visas and terminated records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, the federal database that tracks every F, J, and M visa holder. By January 2026, the administration reported 8,000 student visa revocations since the start of the president’s second term, part of roughly 100,000 nonimmigrant revocations overall — about double the final Biden-year figure.²

The State Department said the majority of student revocations were tied to criminal activity, with roughly half linked to drunk driving convictions, plus burglary, assault, and “support for terrorism.”⁵ Beginning in April 2025, though, SEVIS records were also terminated abruptly without notice to students or their schools. Some students learned of the change by email or text, some by being detained, and some universities discovered terminations only by checking the database themselves.⁶ Some terminations were linked to police encounters in which the student was a victim or witness, according to Inside Higher Ed.²

Affected students came from campuses across the country, including multiple University of California campuses, Stanford, the CSU system, Harvard, Boston University, Tufts, Berklee, UMass Amherst, the University of Oregon, the University of Kentucky, Arizona State, and the University of Colorado.⁶

Litigation followed quickly. By April 2025, at least 65 individual lawsuits had been filed on behalf of at least 290 students and recent graduates, with judges granting temporary orders allowing students to remain in the country in 35 cases. Plaintiffs argued the terminations were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and not otherwise in accordance with law and the Constitution.”⁷ After a federal court hearing in Washington in late April 2025, the Justice Department agreed to restore legal status and SEVIS records for purged students while the government built a new review process.⁸ Additional suits came from students from predominantly Muslim countries with minor misdemeanor convictions, whose attorneys argued the offenses did not meet the legal threshold for termination.⁹

Detentions Tied to Campus Speech

Some of the most visible actions targeted students and scholars involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May 2025 that thousands of visas had been rescinded, including those of guests “disrupting our higher education facilities.”⁵

Mahmoud Khalil

Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and lawful permanent resident, was detained by ICE on March 8, 2025, at his campus housing over his involvement in pro-Palestine protests.¹⁰ The government invoked a Cold War-era immigration statute allowing deportation of people whose presence the Secretary of State deems harmful to foreign policy. Khalil was released after 104 days in detention. In January 2026, a federal appeals court vacated a lower court’s judgment and held that federal courts lacked jurisdiction until immigration proceedings ended. In April 2026, the Board of Immigration Appeals denied his appeal and issued a final administrative removal order, with the government having added a charge alleging he misrepresented information on his green card application.¹¹ In May 2026, his legal team, which includes the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, announced plans to take the case to the Supreme Court after the Third Circuit denied a full-court rehearing on a 6-5 vote.¹²

Rümeysa Öztürk

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student in child development and a former Fulbright scholar, was arrested by plainclothes ICE agents in Somerville, Massachusetts, on March 25, 2025. Her legal team said the arrest was retaliation for an op-ed she co-authored in the student newspaper criticizing Tufts’ response to the war in Gaza. She was transferred from Massachusetts to a detention facility in Louisiana.¹³ A Vermont district court judge ordered her release on bail in May 2025 after finding she raised a “substantial claim” that her detention violated the First Amendment.¹⁴ In December 2025, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled her SEVIS record had been wrongfully terminated and ordered it reinstated.¹⁵ In February 2026, an immigration judge terminated the deportation proceedings entirely, finding DHS lacked legal grounds for her removal. The government has appealed some of the related rulings, and aspects of the civil case are still open.

AAUP v. Rubio

The broader constitutional fight came in American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, filed in March 2025 in the District of Massachusetts. The suit challenged the administration’s policy of targeting noncitizen students and faculty for deportation based on speech about the Israel-Palestine conflict. After a two-week trial concluded in September 2025, Judge William G. Young issued a 161-page ruling finding the policy “impermissibly viewpoint discriminatory in violation of the First Amendment” and “arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act.”¹⁶ In January 2026, Judge Young issued a remedial order setting the policy aside and holding that adverse immigration actions against members of the plaintiff organizations would be presumed retaliatory unless the government provided “clear and convincing evidence” otherwise. The government appealed in February 2026, and the First Circuit stayed part of the remedial order in April 2026. Briefing on appeal continues.¹⁷

Policy Changes That Affect You

Beyond individual revocations, the administration has moved on several regulatory fronts that shape what studying in the United States now looks like:

Travel ban. Presidential Proclamation 10998, signed December 16, 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, imposes a full ban on nationals of 19 countries and holders of Palestinian Authority travel documents, with no exemption for F, J, or M visas. An additional 20 countries fell under a partial ban that specifically suspended F, J, and M entry.¹⁸
End of duration of status. Under the longstanding “duration of status” framework, F and J holders could remain in the country for the length of their program. A proposed rule published in August 2025 would replace that with fixed admission periods capped at four years. The proposal drew nearly 22,000 comments. A final rule was submitted to the Office of Management and Budget on May 5, 2026, and takes effect 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.¹⁹²⁰
Social media screening. Visa applicants must now make social media accounts public. Consular officers screen for “indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States,” as well as advocacy for terrorism or antisemitic harassment.⁵
Visa interview pause. The State Department paused student visa interviews in late May 2025 to implement social media screening. F-1 issuances fell 22 percent year over year in May 2025 alone.²¹
Visa bond pilot. As of March 2026, 50 countries are covered by a B-1/B-2 Visa Bond Pilot Program requiring bonds of $5,000 to $15,000 before visa issuance.¹⁹

OPT Under Threat

Optional Practical Training lets F-1 students work in their field for 12 months after graduation, with a 24-month extension for STEM graduates. OPT participants numbered 294,253 in 2024/25, up 21 percent, and made up roughly a quarter of all international students.³ Ninety-two percent of institutions surveyed said that without OPT, many international students would choose to study elsewhere.⁴

USCIS Director Joseph Edlow stated an aim to use regulatory or sub-regulatory means to remove F-1 students’ ability to obtain employment authorization after coursework ends.²² DHS has listed a rule intended to “align practical training to the goals and objectives of the program” and address “fraud and national security concerns.” In March 2026, SEVP directed school officials to increase vigilance against fraud in STEM OPT, specifically citing IT recruitment, consulting firms, and staffing agencies.¹⁹ On the legislative side, the End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, introduced in April 2026, would end OPT entirely if enacted.²³ Moving in the other direction, the bipartisan Keep Innovators in America Act (H.R. 8013), introduced in March 2026, would let students hold F-1 status during OPT and while green card applications are pending.²⁴

What Happened at Harvard

In May 2025, the Department of Homeland Security moved to revoke Harvard’s SEVP certification, which would have forced every Harvard-sponsored international student to transfer. Harvard sued, and U.S. District Judge Allison D. Burroughs granted a temporary restraining order within hours, finding “immediate and irreparable harm.”²⁵ Harvard called the action a “blatant violation of the First Amendment” and retaliation.²⁶ On June 4, 2025, President Trump signed a proclamation barring entry for holders of Harvard-sponsored visas. Judge Burroughs extended the restraining order in mid-June while weighing a longer-term injunction.²⁷

How the F-1 System Actually Works

Most international students at U.S. colleges hold F-1 visas, issued for academic study at institutions certified by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, a unit within Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security.²⁸ The process starts when an SEVP-certified school admits the student and issues a Form I-20, the certificate of eligibility. The student pays the SEVIS fee and applies for a visa at a U.S. embassy or consulate, where an interview is generally required. The visa application fee is $185.²⁹

Once in the country, F-1 students must stay enrolled full-time, attend classes, and make normal academic progress. Unauthorized employment results in mandatory departure and possible future inadmissibility. Work authorization requires approval from the school official or USCIS and comes in two main forms: Curricular Practical Training, built into the academic program, and Optional Practical Training, which allows temporary employment related to the field of study during or after the program. After finishing, F-1 students have a 60-day grace period to depart, transfer, change education level, or apply for a change of status.³⁰

SEVIS is the database sitting behind all of this. It tracks student addresses, enrollment, courses of study, employment, and compliance in real time, and is used by school officials, ICE, USCIS, Customs and Border Protection, and the State Department.³¹ Schools must apply for SEVP recertification every two years and can lose certification for noncompliance.³²

Legal Rights of International Students

Noncitizens in the United States hold constitutional rights, including protections under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause. In Bridges v. Wixon, the Supreme Court held that noncitizens in the country are protected against deportation based solely on political associations or beliefs. A 1990 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act added a “safe harbor” provision explicitly preventing removal based on “beliefs, statements, or associations” that would be lawful within the U.S., unless those actions “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”³³

The application of those rights has historically given the executive branch wide latitude in the immigration context. To deport a lawful permanent resident, the government must convene a removal hearing before an immigration judge and prove deportability by “clear and convincing” evidence. Unlike criminal proceedings, though, removal hearings do not guarantee appointed counsel, a jury trial, or judicial independence; immigration judges are Department of Justice employees.³⁴ For F-1 holders, the terrain is more precarious still: visa status can be revoked unilaterally, and appeals against revocation are rare and seldom successful.⁶ The AAUP v. Rubio ruling, now on appeal, is the strongest judicial pushback so far, holding that noncitizens “unequivocally” hold the same free speech rights as citizens and that the government may not target them for deportation based on political viewpoint.¹⁶

Where Students Are Going Instead

The pullback is not U.S.-specific, but the U.S. is losing share. A June 2026 survey of 254 universities across 36 countries found that all four major English-speaking destinations experienced steep drops in international enrollment for the January–March 2026 intake. The U.S. reported a 24 percent decline in master’s students and 20 percent in undergraduates. Canada’s declines were even larger, and Australia and the UK saw double-digit drops. Officials in all four countries pointed to restrictive government policies as the main obstacle.³⁵

In a fall 2025 survey of recruitment advisors, nearly 75 percent reported that students were considering alternatives, with eight of the top ten in Europe. France reported a record 443,500 international students in 2024/25 and set a target of 30,000 Indian students by 2030. Germany was forecast to exceed 400,000 international students by the 2024/25 winter semester. Spain launched a fast-track route specifically aimed at students affected by U.S. visa restrictions. South Korea met its 300,000-student enrollment goal two years ahead of schedule.³⁶ The Asia-Pacific region reported 16 percent growth in undergraduate enrollment and 5 percent at the master’s level, contrasting sharply with the declines in the Big Four.³⁵

1
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2
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3
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4
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