The Georgetown fellow, an Indian citizen, was released from detention in May.
Andrew Thomas/AFP via Getty Images
A Georgetown University researcher who was detained by immigration agents in March will be allowed to resume his work, at least for now, according to a court settlement released Tuesday. Politico first reported the development.
The agreement does not guarantee that the postdoctoral fellow, Badar Khan Suri, will be able to stay in U.S. long term, and it doesn’t resolve his claim that the government violated his First Amendment rights by detaining him because of his pro-Palestinian comments and what the government claims are ties to Hamas. Those aspects of the case will be determined by a later ruling.
That said, as litigation continues, Suri will be protected, maintain his status as a student and remain employed.
Suri was first released from detention in May. His wife is a citizen, but her father has been identified as a former Hamas adviser, which likely was a key factor that influenced Suri’s arrest, Politico reported.
Both parties in the case agreed the settlement was a result of “good faith” negotiations, Politico noted, though the State Department and Department of Homeland Security declined to comment.
“We are encouraged that the government agreed to restore Dr. Suri and his children’s status and records,” Eden Heilman, an ACLU lawyer representing Suri, told Politico. “We know Dr. Suri is eager to rejoin the academic community at Georgetown and this will give him the opportunity to do that this fall.”
This story was produced by The 19th and reprinted with permission.
On July 4, Nory Sontay Ramos stepped off a flight from San Antonio into a country she hardly recognized: Guatemala.
The summer wasn’t supposed to start this way. The 17-year-old had plans. In early June, she wrapped up 11th grade on a high note, having made the honor roll and represented her Los Angeles high school in the city finals for track. With track season over, she turned her attention to cross-country, showing up to campus for practice after the school year ended.
Everything changed when she and her mother, Estela Ramos — both undocumented — appeared at what they thought was a standard check-in visit with immigration officials on June 30.
“ICE took us to a room, and they ended up telling my mom, ‘Your case is over, so we have to take you guys with us,’” Sontay Ramos told The 19th. Over the objections of their attorney, federal agents led them away.
The next day, she and her mother were shipped to Texas. And by July 4, they were on a plane to Guatemala, a country where neither of them have lived for over a decade. On Independence Day — an occasion associated with freedom, with hope — their American dream shattered. Sontay Ramos has no idea what will become of the friends, family members and school community her deportation forced her to leave behind in Los Angeles.
A lawyer hired after she and her mother were detained said Monday that a motion to reopen the case has been filed with the Board of Immigration Appeals but provided no other information to The 19th.
A year shy of becoming a high school graduate in the United States, the teen’s life — and opportunities — completely changed in the span of five days.
“I’m confused,” Sontay Ramos said, her voice breaking. “I don’t know. I’m just really sad about everything.”
President Donald Trump campaigned for a return to office with the promise of mass deportations, characterizing undocumented immigrants as criminals and threats to women and girls. But as his administration has ramped up enforcement of his policy priority, undocumented people with no criminal backgrounds have made up the largest share of immigrants targeted. Those who are pursuing legal status through the proper channels have also become vulnerable — showing up to check-ins, like Sontay Ramos and her mother — only to be detained. These developments, recent polls reveal, have led to public disapproval of the Trump administration’s strategies.
Civil liberties and advocacy groups have raised concerns that undocumented immigrants are being removed so quickly they have been denied the right to due process. With Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act directing $150 billion more toward mass deportations, expedited removals of undocumented immigrants will almost certainly increase — and those immigrants who arrived in the United States as children like Sontay Ramos stand to get caught in the middle.
The Trump administration deported more than 93,800 people from January 20 to June 11, with ICE more than doubling its arrests compared with the same period in 2024, revealed an analysis by the Washington Post based on information from the Deportation Data Project. (The data does not reflect arrest and removal numbers from Customs and Border Protection.) Of those, 61 percent did not have criminal records and almost 90 percent were men, underscoring how relatively uncommon it is for a mother and daughter to be removed.
The Trump administration has not provided a tally of how many minors have been deported this year, but The 19th’s review of figures from the Deportation Data Project found that only about 3 percent of removals involved children. When ICE targets juveniles, the incidents often make national headlines, such as when a 9-year-old boy and his father living in Torrance, California, were detained in May and swiftly deported to Honduras. In states including Michigan, Massachusetts and New York, the detainment of teenagers, including those who are technically legal adults, have also garnered widespread media attention this year.
But when Sontay Ramos and her mother exited their Guatemala-bound flight on Friday, they weren’t met with fanfare. None of their family members in the Central American nation knew to expect them. With the help of an internet connection, they managed to contact one of Sontay Ramos’ older sisters, with whom they’re now living. The teenager isn’t sure which part of Guatemala she’s in, though she describes the area as rural.
Just six when she left Guatemala, Sontay Ramos struggles to recall what life there was like. But she remembers the emotion she felt as a small child: fear.
“I was scared because there’s gangsters here, and they tried to kill my mom,” she said. A family member involved in a gang threatened her mother, once attacking her so badly she needed to be hospitalized, she said. “My mom was scared.”
A research study exploring the root causes of immigration from Guatemala from 2012 to 2019 found violence, poverty, climate change and corruption to be among the driving factors and that many such migrants hail from rural parts of the country.
“The two major reasons, especially if we look at families, have to do with violence and drought,” said David Leblang, a coauthor of that study and politics professor at the University of Virginia. “It has been drought and then flood, hurricane and then drought that has just decreased the ability for families to put food on the table, so you see a combination of economic insecurity, but more so for families, food insecurity — because when you can’t feed your kids, that’s when families are going to pick up and they’re going to move first to more urban areas and then out of the country.”
About 11 years ago, Sontay Ramos and her mother headed by car to the United States in search of safety and opportunity. There, other family members awaited them and they hoped to be granted asylum, she said.
The transition was not easy. They left behind three of Sontay Ramos’ older siblings who did not want to come to the United States, she said. Her father remained in Guatemala, too. His death from illness shortly after she moved away was devastating.
“Unfortunately, her dad passed away at a young age, just like two weeks after her arrival to the States,” recalled Jennifer Ramos, Sontay Ramos’ 22-year-old cousin who lives in Los Angeles. “She grew up with her dad, so that also hit her at such a young age, just coming to a new country at six years old and not knowing the language here and losing her father. It was definitely hard for her.”
Getting accustomed to life in Los Angeles also wasn’t easy. Sontay Ramos and her mother are Indigenous Guatemalans, fluent in K’iche’. Few resources in their native tongue made assimilation more challenging in a city where English and Spanish are the primary languages.
Jennifer Ramos helped her little cousin learn to speak English. “She would come over, and I would help her with her homework. When she first came to the States, my younger sister was kind of her only friend in school because she didn’t know anybody and, again, the language barrier. She actually does struggle speaking Spanish.”
In time, Sontay Ramos and her mother adjusted to life in California. Her mother ultimately became a garment worker, employed as a seamstress until physical setbacks — illness and surgery — sidelined her earlier this year. Her deportation has separated her from her life partner, with whom she and her daughter shared an apartment in the Westlake District of Los Angeles, the neighborhood where an ICE raid at a Home Depot close to an elementary school in June panicked families, and days of demonstrations in nearby downtown escalated after Trump deployed 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines.
Los Angeles is a deeply blue city in a liberal state, with the nation’s highest concentration of immigrants — a place that the president has made ground zero for his immigration raids. In November, the City Council voted unanimously to make L.A. a sanctuary city, which bars it from using resources for immigration enforcement. Last week, the Trump administration filed suit, challenging the law. Meanwhile, advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and Public Counsel are suing the Trump administration for what it describes as a pattern of federal violations during immigration raids in Greater Los Angeles.
Before Trump’s immigration policies roiled her neighborhood and upended her life, Sontay Ramos was indistinguishable from her peers born in the United States. She grew up on the Netflix shows “Stranger Things” and “Cobra Kai,” enjoys the music of Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd and dotes on her cat, Max, who turned one on May 15. He is black — one of her two favorite colors. In her spare time, Sontay Ramos practices taekwondo, which she’s been learning for nearly four years.
“I just liked it,” she said of the martial art. Knowing how to fight, she added, helps her feel protected.
Sontay Ramos never sensed she was in danger before the immigration check-in that would push her out of the United States.
But her cousin Jennifer Ramos worried. The night before, Ramos’ father invited the family over to have Sunday dinner with his wife and three daughters. The evening was largely festive. Her father made shrimp ceviche and was eager for his family to enjoy the tangy, citrusy dish — especially Estela Ramos, who had just celebrated her 45th birthday. But when Estela mentioned that she and her daughter had an immigration check-in scheduled, everyone fell quiet.
“We were kind of scared,” Jennifer Ramos said. “We were like, ‘Are you sure you should go?’”
Estela Ramos poses for a picture with Jennifer Ramos at her quinceanera in 2017. Credit: COURTESY OF JENNIFER RAMOS
But her aunt tried to reassure them by letting them know their lawyer said it would be fine. After all, they had shown up for previous check-ins without incident, and if they didn’t appear, immigration officials would just find them at home.
Now, Jennifer Ramos doesn’t know when she’ll see her aunt and cousin again.
“It is unfair that a young student like her has been detained,” she said. “She’s the most deserving person. This should be the least of her worries.”
Sontay Ramos couldn’t help but tear up when she described what she was looking forward to about senior year — graduation, her friends, track-and-field and cross-country.
Although excited to reunite with family members they hadn’t seen in years, she and her mother have been weeping off and on since they arrived in Guatemala.
“I was happy, but I was expecting to see them in another way,” she said of her relatives. “Not like this.”
Sleeping and eating have been tough as has the constant feeling of disorientation. She doesn’t know where she is. In K’iche’, she asked her mother for the name of the town they’re in, but it didn’t register.
She also continues to feel blindsided about why she and her mother were deported at all. She doesn’t understand how or why their case was closed.
Recent polls, particularly those conducted after the immigration raids in Los Angeles, reveal that the Trump’s administration’s immigration crackdowns may be unpopular with the majority of the public. A PBS News/NPR/Marist poll released July 1 found that just 43 percent of Americans support Trump’s tactics.
Sixty-four percent of registered voters support giving most undocumented immigrants in the United States a pathway to legal status, with 31 percent preferring deportation for most of them, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released June 26. Six months ago, only 55 percent of voters supported giving unauthorized immigrants a path to legal status, while 36 percent backed deportation.
Leblang, the politics professor, said that ultimately the economy will sway the public to take a stand on immigration.
“All of those people who are being deported, they’re consuming goods that are produced by natives,” he said. “So, what the evidence suggests is that’s going to affect native workers’ wages, so across the board, this is going to have a negative effect on the economy.”
For Manuel Guevara — a physical education teacher and coach at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, where Sontay Ramos is enrolled as a student — immigration isn’t an economic issue but a personal one. He came to the United States at 11 months in the mid-1980s amid El Salvador’s horrific 12-year civil war, becoming a citizen as a teenager. He fears that more deportations of youth from his school are imminent. He knows some families skipped school graduations in the area due to their concerns over raids. Some are so worried they refuse to let their children attend football practice. He’s heard that other families intend to self deport.
“This is not normal,” Guevara said. “Our whole community is beyond vulnerable. A lot of their [students’] parents, sad to say, don’t know how to read and write. Their kids need to do that for them. If they’re presented with [immigration] paperwork, they might not even be able to read it because that’s not their primary language.”
Before her deportation, Nory Sontay Ramos was recognized at school for her academic and athletic achievements. Credit: COURTESY OF JENNIFER RAMOS
He can hardly believe that Sontay Ramos, whom he taught for most of her high school years, is gone.
“She was smiling, happy-go-lucky,” Guevara said. He’s astounded that she was detained and deported in less than a week. “Nory is going into her senior year, which is another thing that’s just killing me. She was going into her senior year with all this momentum.”
Guevara fondly recalled the teen’s high-pitched voice that gets even higher when she’s excited.
“You could tell when she’s coming from down the hallway, for sure,” he said. But her trademark voice is now subdued due to her deportation ordeal. Through tears, she expressed gratitude for how her teachers, classmates and other supporters have donated nearly $7,000 to her GoFundMe campaign.
“I just want to thank everybody for the support and tell them to just be safe out there and be strong no matter what’s going to happen,” she said.
If she can’t return to the United States, she will figure out how to finish her education in Guatemala, Sontay Ramos said.
Guevara is certain she has the aptitude for greatness. Her academics and extracurricular activities are just hints of what she’s capable of, he said.
“She was about to reach cruising altitude,” he said. “Some of our students are capable of reaching the clouds up there and doing some great things. And I really believe that she was on her way.”
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Two years ago, Nicolle Orozco Forero walked into an in-home day care in Seattle, Washington, looking for a job. She was barely 22, a whole five feet tall — if that. But she was calm, focused. Her presence struck the owner, Stephanie Wishon, because it’s not easy to find qualified staff who can work with children with disabilities.
Orozco Forero had experience working with kids who had autism back in Colombia, so Wishon had her come in for a trial run and hired her after the first day. The children, who needed someone who had love and care to give in abundance, gravitated toward her. She was good at the hardest stuff. She changed diapers and outfits the moment they were soiled. She was vigilant; her kids stayed pristine. And she got them to do the things they wouldn’t do for other people, like say “ah” when it was time to get their teeth brushed or sit still long enough for her to twist a braid down their back.
Some people just have that way about them.
And people like Orozco Forero are exceptionally rare. Already, the staffing shortage in child care is near crisis levels. It’s far worse for children with disabilities — about a third of those families say they face significant difficulty finding care for their kids, partly because there are too few people with the ability, expertise or desire to work with their children. Immigrant women like Orozco Forero have been helping to fill that void. They now make up 20 percent of all child care workers.
At home, Orozco Forero was also caring for her own young boys, one of whom started to show symptoms of a serious illness over the past two years that doctors have not yet been able to diagnose. She took some time off to care for him last year, before returning to the kids at Wishon’s day care.
Her work has kept an already precarious safety net together. Without women like Orozco Forero, families who have nowhere else to turn for care have to make difficult decisions about how to survive and keep their children safe. Without her, the safety net snaps.
And that’s exactly what happened on June 18, the day she was detained.
It was supposed to be a routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Orozco Forero and her husband had been to all their monthly meetings for the past year and change, since their asylum charge was denied in April 2024.
The family — Orozco Forero; her husband, Juan Sebastian Moreno Acosta; and their two sons, Juan David, 7, and Daniel, 5 — fled Colombia two years ago. Moreno Acosta, a street vendor, had been persecuted by gangs who target vendors for money.
After arriving in the United States, they sought the help of a lawyer with their asylum claim, but when they couldn’t pay his full fee ahead of their hearing, he pulled out. They represented themselves in court and lost the case. With no knowledge of the U.S. court system, they didn’t know they had 30 days to appeal the ruling, either. Ever since, ICE has been monitoring them, requiring they wear a wrist tracker and meet with an immigration officer once a month, sometimes more, according to a family member. (The 19th is not naming the family member to protect their identity.) It’s unclear why ICE has allowed them to stay in the country all this time, though it’s not necessarily uncommon; ICE typically prioritized immigrants with felonies for deportation.
Orozco Forero had seen the reports of illegal immigrants being rounded up at their immigration appointments. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to the detention of about 30,000 migrants with no criminal record, like Orozco Forero, who now make up about half of those detained. Her husband does have a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol on his record, but he completed a court-mandated alcohol course for that and has no other convictions.
Still, Orozco Forero wasn’t worried when she headed to her appointment on the morning of June 18. If ICE planned to detain her, Orozco Forero thought, they would have asked her to come with the boys, right?
And she had been doing everything right: She’d gone to all her appointments, taken documentation to show she was going to school at Green River Community College taking courses in English and early childhood education. She had completed a child care internship that trained her to open her own licensed in-home day care. Her licensure approval was set to arrive any moment, likely that same week, and the day care was just about ready to go.
But that morning, her family was still wary, asking her to share her location just in case.
Shortly after 10 a.m., Orozco Forero texted her family member: “They are going to deport us”
“Nicolle what happened? Nicolle answer me,” they texted back. “What do I do?”
“I can’t speak I feel like I’m going to faint,” Orozco Forero replied. And then: “I’m sorry it wasn’t what we expected.”
Two-and-a-half hours west, on the coast of Washington in a town called Southbend, Wishon was frantic. Orozco Forero had texted her, too. ICE was asking for the boys.
In two years, Wishon had grown incredibly close to Orozco Forero, who had cared for her own kids. After her family moved to the coast, Wishon rented out her house in Seattle to Orozco Forero, whose boys were excited to have a home with a yard.
Wishon’s husband, Gabriel, hopped into his truck and headed to Seattle. Wishon, meanwhile, got on the phone with the Orozco Forero family’s ICE agent and every lawyer she could. They were going to take them into detention at a facility 2,200 miles away in Texas, a facility that was reopened earlier this year by the Trump administration to detain families. Wishon wanted to find a lawyer who could stop the deportation order, and she wanted to make sure the boys would be reunited with their parents if they took them to meet the ICE agent.
Nicolle Orozco Forero’s sons play with a child their mother takes care of. (Stephanie Wishon)
And that was especially important, not just because they were young children, but because Juan David is still sick.
For the past year, he’s been seeking treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital for an illness that is turning his urine muddy. So far, doctors have determined he’s losing red blood cells and protein through his urine, indicating a possible kidney issue, but they haven’t yet zeroed in on what is causing the problem. They likely need a kidney biopsy to be sure.
“Given the complexity of his case, it is essential that Juan remain in the United States for continued testing and treatment,” his nephrologist Jordan Symons wrote in a March letter to ICE. “We kindly request that you consider this medical necessity in your review of his immigration status and grant him the ability to stay in the United States until his treatment and evaluation are completed.”
Juan David’s care team has been monitoring him closely to ensure his red blood cell and protein levels never drop too low. His condition could become serious quickly.
“You can die from that,” said Sarah Kasnick, a physician’s assistant who is familiar with his case. Kasnick is also a foster parent, and Orozco Forero provided care for her family.
When Gabriel Wishon arrived to pick up the boys, they were confused and disoriented. Where were their parents? Why was everyone crying? They didn’t want to go to Colombia, they told him on the drive. They wanted to stay in the United States.
Around 5:30 p.m. that evening, he met with the ICE agent, who had waited past her work hours for them to arrive.
“Bye boys, you are going to see your parents right now. They are right inside,” Wishon told them. He watched them walk in carrying two stuffed animals, a Super Mario doll and Chase, the popular cartoon dog dressed as a police officer.
The families Orozco Forero cares for are now in a free fall.
Jessica Cocson, whose son has been in Orozco Forero’s care for more than a year, described her in a character letter to ICE as a “blessing to us in ways I struggle to fully express.”
Orozco Forero and her husband “support working families, provide quality childcare, and demonstrate compassion and commitment every day,” Cocson wrote. “It is heartbreaking to think that someone who gives so much and asks so little could be forced to leave.”
Tamia Riley, whose two sons with autism were also in Orozco Forero’s care, said losing her was like watching “a father walking out the door.”
“These people, these day care providers, sitters, they are a form of family members for me and my children,” Riley said.
Now, the day care she was set to open lays empty. Inside, the walls are plastered with posters listing colors and sight words. There are cushioned mats on the floor and play stations. Tables with tiny chairs. A tall pink dollhouse. High chairs and a pack and play for the babies. Outside, two play houses, a ball pit, toys to ride on and little picnic tables set across an artificial turf. But no children to enjoy any of it.
Big Dreams Day Care she was going to call it, for the dreams she wanted the kids in her care to strive for, and the ones that were finally coming to fruition for her.
Orozco Forero’s detention has rattled child care workers across the country. In Texas, workers represented by the Service Employees International Union have been rallying in her name. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, spoke in support of the family’s release at a rally on June 29 in San Antonio. And a group of union workers is attempting to deliver supplies to the family. It’s an effort Orozco Forero knows little about; she only has limited communication with those on the outside.
Tricia Schroeder, the president of the Seattle-based SEIU chapter that represents care workers, said that, for years unions like hers have been working to improve quality, access and affordability in child care, a system in such deep crisis it’s been called by the Treasury Department “a textbook example of a broken market.”
Immigrant women like Orozco Forero were part of that effort to improve access, doing jobs few Americans want to take on.
“Detaining child care providers, especially those who care for kids with special needs, just deepens the crisis in early learning,” Schroeder said.
Nicolle Orozco Forero was going to community college for early childhood education and planned to open her own daycare before she was detained by ICE. (Stephanie Wishon)
Orozco Forero was also the connective tissue that kept families employed. Her loss has rippled across industries.
Kasnick, the foster parent, said one of the children in her care had been tentatively set to start at Orozco Forero’s day care as soon as it opened. Orozco Forero had been the only provider who would take the child, who has autism and is nonverbal.
Orozco Forero had cared for the girl at Wishon’s day care as if she was her own, even taking her in once when the child’s care had fallen through and no foster family in the entire county would take her in because of the complexity of her needs. The girl arrived at Orozco Forero’s house at midnight on a weekend “with no clothing, toys, medication or any of her belongings … this did not [deter] Nicolle and Sebastian instead they immediately went and purchased all the things” the child needed, a social worker wrote in a letter to ICE. Kasnick said Orozco Forero was even considering becoming a foster parent.
Without her, Kasnick is out of options: She quit her job as a physician’s assistant to care for the child after Orozco Forero was detained.
“There are now 44 patients a day who don’t have anyone to provide their health care, and I can’t go to work because Nicolle’s day care didn’t open,” Kasnick said.
In the weeks since, Kasnick has had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, she said. How could this happen to someone who gave back so much?
“The security of knowing that you can be in your home one day and in a prison the next week, and you didn’t do anything except exist?” she said. “It makes you feel like there’s no good left in the world.”
Orozco Forero’s family has now been in ICE detention for nearly a month awaiting a bond hearing that could buy them time in the United States. Orozco Forero and the boys are together; her husband is in the same facility but separated from them.
Juan David hasn’t been eating. It took three weeks for him to receive medical care, Orozco Forero told her attorney, James Costo.
Costo has been working to get the details of why ICE allowed the family to stay in the country with monitoring after they lost their asylum case last year. There has been an order for their deportation since then, but ICE never attempted to deport them until the Trump administration ramped up efforts. The number of immigrants without criminal convictions who have been detained has doubled since May.
The process to fight an asylum claim and appeal a denial is complicated — there are court deadlines, documents that need to be submitted and translated.
“They think maybe they can do it themselves and go in and say what happened but they are not understanding the whole legal process,” Costo said. “The system isn’t made for things to be easy.”
Costo is hopeful a judge will allow them to stay in the country temporarily as Juan David seeks care. They have almost no family left in Colombia, and no way to obtain care for him there, their family said. If they can stay, then perhaps Orozco Forero could try to obtain a work visa as a domestic worker.
He has gathered letters of support from numerous people whose lives the Orozco Forero family touched, and Wishon set up a GoFundMe to cover her legal expenses.
In the letters, Juan David’s first grade teachers call him an exceptional student who went from one of the lowest reading levels in the class — 10 words a minute — to one of the highest at 70 words a minute.
“He shows the qualities of a model citizen at a young age — dependable, ethical, and hard-working,” wrote his teacher, Carla Trujillo.
They were all on their way to shaping a better future, Wishon wrote in hers. The couple “worked tirelessly to build a better life for their children and to open their own licensed child care business. In all my years of employing and mentoring caregivers, I have rarely met a couple as responsible, driven, and capable as Nicolle and Sebastian.”
“This family is not a threat,” she concluded. “They are an asset.”
As President Donald Trump has ramped up deportations, some immigrant students across New York have been too afraid to attend class in person. In response, some school districts have turned to virtual learning, a move the state’s Education Department is sanctioning, officials revealed last week.
“I will tell you in the sense of a crisis, we do have some districts right now … that are taking advantage and providing virtual instruction to our children who are afraid to go to school,” Associate Education Commissioner Elisa Alvarez told state officials at May’s Board of Regents meeting.
Alvarez shared with the board a memo the state Education Department issued in March clarifying that districts have the flexibility to offer online instruction to “students who may be unable or averse to attending school, including during times of political uncertainty.”
The memo further specified schools can tap online learning for immigrant and migrant students “who may be affected and reluctant to attend school in person due to concerns about their personal safety and security.”
Alvarez didn’t disclose how many or which districts were using the approach and for how many students. A state Education Department spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions.
New York City public schools already have virtual options available and aren’t doing anything different for immigrant students fearful of attending school, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department said.
Still, the disclosure from state officials highlights the ongoing fears some immigrant students are facing four months into the Trump administration and raises fresh questions about how their school experiences are being affected.
Shortly after taking office, Trump rescinded longstanding guidance barring federal immigration agents from making arrests at “sensitive locations” including schools.
Migrant families staying in New York City shelters expressed acute fears during the week after Trump’s inauguration in January and stayed out of school in large numbers, likely contributing to lower citywide attendance rates that week (though Mayor Eric Adams later downplayed the attendance woes). Some city educators said they’ve seen attendance for immigrant students rebound since that first week.
City policy prohibits federal law enforcement agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from entering schools without a warrant signed by a judge, and Education Department officials have trained school staff on detailed protocols for how to respond.
At the state level, the Attorney General’s office and Education Department issued joint guidance in March reiterating that state and federal law both compel districts to only permit federal law enforcement to enter schools under very limited circumstances.
Many school leaders have worked hard to communicate those policies and reassure anxious families. And immigration enforcement inside of schools has remained rare.
But some high-profile raids have targeted school-age children, including one in the upstate New York hometown of Trump border czar Tom Homan that swept up three students in the local public schools, sparking fear and outrage. And there have been reports across the country of parents detained by immigration agents right outside schools during drop-off time.
Under those circumstances, virtual learning could give schools a way to keep up some connection with students or families who might otherwise completely disengage.
But some New York City educators said they’re still working hard to convince fearful immigrant students to come to school in person, noting that virtual learning was especially challenging for English language learners during the COVID pandemic.
Lara Evangelista, the executive director of the Internationals Network, which oversees 17 public schools in the five boroughs catering exclusively to newly arrived immigrant students, said none of her schools have made the “purposeful choice” to engage fearful students through virtual learning.
“Virtual learning for [English Learners] was really challenging during COVID,” she said.
Alan Cheng, the superintendent who oversees the international schools as well as the city’s dedicated virtual schools, said he hasn’t seen any significant changes in enrollment or interest in online learning due to fear of in-person attendance among immigrant students.
And while virtual learning might be able to offer a version of the academic experience of in-person school, it’s harder for it to replicate some of the other services that schools provide families.
“Our schools serve much more than just the academic environment,” Cheng said. “They are really community schools, they provide health care, they provide plenty of other resources.”
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
Immigration officials sent letters to international students on short-term work visas Thursday night, threatening to terminate their legal status in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System and remove them from the country. The number of affected students is still unknown, but Inside Higher Ed can confirm at least 35.
It’s the first sign that the Trump administration is resuming its campaign to deport student visa holders, weeks after restoring the statuses of thousands of students. ICE recently released an updated policy that significantly expands the agency’s authority to terminate students’ SEVIS status and pave the way for deportation proceedings.
This time, they’re targeting students on Optional Practical Training visas, or OPTs, which allow international postgraduates the opportunity to work in a field relevant to their study on a short-term extension. Students on OPT are allowed a total of 90 days of unemployment every 12 months before falling out of compliance. It’s still not known whether any of the affected students were on a special visa extension known as OPT for STEM, awarded to graduates in high-demand technology, science and engineering fields.
One international student adviser, who spoke with Inside Higher Ed on the condition of anonymity, said 28 of his institution’s students on OPT received the letter in the past day, and he expects that number will grow.
In a copy of one letter received by an international student and obtained by Inside Higher Ed, Immigration and Customs Enforcement warned those who have not reported employment status within 90 days of starting their OPT visa that they must do so in 15 days. If they don’t, the Student Exchange and Visitor Program “will set your SEVIS record to ‘terminated,’” the letter reads, which “may result in the initiation of immigration proceedings to remove you from the United States.”
The letter is nearly identical to those sent by officials during the first Trump administration in 2020. The only difference: Back then, the Student Exchange and Visitor Program was the letter’s sole signatory. This time, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security are also named.
The 2020 letters were sent two years after officials issued an update to designated school officials informing them that the administration had begun a review of OPT students’ employment status to find noncompliant visa holders. But that notice also said SEVP would not automatically terminate students’ SEVIS status for going over the 90-day unemployment limit before notifying students.
It’s not clear whether immigration officials engaged in a review process before beginning to notify students of potential SEVIS terminations this week. Spokespeople for ICE and DHS did not respond to questions in time for publication.
It was also not immediately clear if OPT students’ SEVIS terminations would result in subsequent visa revocations, which are the purview of the State Department. A spokesperson for the State Department wrote in an email that they “cannot preview future visa-related decisions, which are made on a case-by-case basis, based on the individual facts relevant to the case,” and deferred other questions sent by Inside Higher Ed to DHS.
In an internal communication sent to international student advisers and support specialists, NAFSA, an organization of international educators, urged college officials to regularly check the SEVIS database for notices of OPT students’ compliance with “accrued unemployment days” and to reach out to any students who are over the 90-day limit as soon as possible.
Immigration officials began systematically terminating thousands of students’ SEVIS statuses along with their visas in late March, an unprecedented move that threw international student support offices into chaos and left students scrambling to avoid deportation.
Last month, immigration officials restored the SEVIS statuses of more than 5,000 international students after losing dozens of court cases challenging the legality of efforts to revoke foreign students’ legal residency at a breakneck pace.
The anonymous international student adviser said students on OPT often forget to report their employment details before the 90-day deadline. Many are distracted by graduations and finals well after they receive approval for the visa and forget, he said; in other cases, the lapse can be due to technical issues within SEVIS.
Because of that, they’re often given some leeway, and he said he’s never seen or heard of a student having their SEVIS status terminated for not reporting employment details on time, including the last time these letters were sent in 2020. Then again, much of the Trump administration’s treatment of student visa holders is unprecedented, and he’s worried this could be a real danger for them.
“There’s a lot of panic and uncertainty as our students are waiting to see what will happen, and we’re waiting to see if they’ll really go through with it,” he said. “I think this is the real deal.”
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow and professor at Georgetown University, was released from a federal detention center in Texas on Wednesday after being held for two months.
Suri, an Indian national, was arrested in March under government claims that he was a threat to U.S. interests and had close connections to a known or suspected terrorist. This week a federal judge in Virginia ordered Suri’s immediate release due to a lack of evidence to support such claims.
Prior to his arrest, Suri had been in the U.S. for three years on a student visa and was teaching a course on minority rights in South Asia at Georgetown, according to The New York Times. Suri’s lawyers believe he was targeted because his father-in-law served as a political adviser to the Hamas-led government in Gaza in the early 2000s.
Suri was apprehended outside his home in Rosslyn, Va., on March 15 and was moved among detention centers in Virginia, Louisiana and Texas. Suri described his treatment in the Prairieland Detention Center in Texas as subhuman, saying he was chained at the ankles, wrists and body.
Other international academics are locked in legal battles with the federal government over challenges to their standing in the U.S.
A University of Minnesota student, Dogukan Gunaydin, has been in ICE custody since March despite having his case overturned. Alireza Doroudi, who was a doctoral student at the University of Alabama, requested voluntary departure to avoid prolonged detention, according to his attorney. Columbia student Leqaa Kordia was arrested in March and remains in an immigration detention center in Texas.
The Harvard Medical School research associate and Russian native detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement three months ago and sent to Louisiana now faces a criminal charge—for allegedly trying to smuggle frog embryos into the U.S.
The Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office announced the charge in a news release Wednesday, saying it could mean “a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, a term of up to five years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.”
Prosecutors allege that after the researcher, Kseniia Petrova, arrived from Paris at Boston’s Logan International Airport, a law enforcement canine “alerted its handler to the defendant’s checked duffel bag on the baggage carousel.” The release said Petrova “initially denied carrying any biological material in her checked baggage.”
Petrova’s lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, said in a statement Thursday that “less than two hours after the Vermont judge set a hearing on Kseniia’s release, she was suddenly transferred from ICE to criminal custody. This is not a coincidence. It is an attempt by the government to justify its outrageous and legally indefensible position that this scientist working for the U.S. on cures for cancer and aging research has somehow become a danger.”
The government said in court Wednesday that it intends “to deport Kseniia to Russia,” Romanovsky said, “where it knows she will face grave danger for opposing the Putin regime.”
He said he expects Petrova will be transferred to Massachusetts in the next few weeks. Romanovsky has previously said Petrova was transporting “a non-hazardous scientific sample,” for which authorities could’ve merely fined her instead of detaining her and revoking her visa.
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.
Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson wants to eject undocumented students from public school classrooms. But first, he needs their data.
Watson seeks to require students statewide to submit a birth certificate or other sensitive documents to secure their seats — one of numerous efforts nationwide this year as Republican state lawmakers seek to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court precedent enshrining students’ right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.
Some 300 demonstrators participate in a Waukegan, Illinois, rally on Feb. 1 to draw attention to an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area. Privacy advocates warn student records could be used to assist deportations. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In my latest feature this week, I dive into why those efforts have alarmed student data privacy advocates, who warn that efforts to compile data on immigrant students could be used not just to deny them an education — it could also fall into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly works to create a “master database” of government records to zero in on migrants, data privacy experts warn that state and federal data about immigrant students could be weaponized.
In the news
Cybercriminals demanded ransom payments from school districts nationwide this week, using millions of K-12 students’ sensitive data as leverage after the files were stolen from education technology giant PowerSchool in a massive cyberattack late last year. The development undercuts PowerSchool’s decision to pay a ransom in December to keep the sensitive documents under wraps. | The 74
Gutted: Investigations at the Education Department’s civil rights office have trickled to a halt as the Trump administration installs a “shadow division” to advance cases that align with the president’s agenda. | ProPublica
Civil rights groups, students and parents have asked courts to block the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement changes under Trump, saying they fail to hold schools accountable for racial harassment and abuses against children with disabilities. | K-12 Dive
Among the thousands of cases put on the back burner is a complaint from a Texas teenager who was kneed in the face by a campus cop. | The 74
‘The hardest case for mercy’: Congratulations to Marshall Project contributor Joe Sexton, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting on a legal team’s successful bid to spare the Parkland, Florida, school shooter from the death penalty. | The Marshall Project
The city council in Uvalde, Texas, approved a $2 million settlement with the families of the victims in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, the first lawsuit to end with monetary payouts since 19 children and two teachers were killed. | Insurance Journal
In Michigan, a state commission created in the wake of the 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School, which resulted in the deaths of four students, issued a final report calling for additional funding to strengthen school mental health supports. | Chalkbeat
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Education Department axed $1 billion in federal grants designed to train mental health professionals and place them in schools in a bid to thwart mass shootings. | The 74
A high school substitute teacher in Ohio was arrested on accusations she offered a student $2,000 to murder her husband. | WRIC
Connecticut schools have been forced to evacuate from fires caused by a “dangerous TikTok trend” where students stab school-issued laptops with paper clips to cause electrical short circuits. | WFSB
Eleven high school lacrosse players in upstate New York face unlawful imprisonment charges on accusations they staged a kidnapping of younger teammates who thought they were being abducted by armed assailants. | CNN
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The Future of Privacy Forum has “retired” its Student Privacy Pledge after a decade. The pledge, which was designed to ensure education technology companies were ethical stewards of students’ sensitive data, was ended due to “the changing technological and policy landscape regarding education technology.” | Future of Privacy Forum
The pledge had previously faced scrutiny over its ability to hold tech vendors accountable for violating its terms. | The 74
New kid on the block: Almost simultaneously, Common Sense Privacy launched a “privacy seal certification” to recognize vendors that are “deeply committed to privacy.” | Business Wire
Google plans to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot for children as the tech giant seeks to attract young eyeballs to its AI products. | The New York Times
Kansas schools plan to spend state money on AI tools to spot guns despite concerns over reports of false alarms. | Beacon Media
ICYMI @The74
A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services suggests gender-affirming health care puts transgender youth at risk but the report ignores years of research indicating otherwise. (Getty Images)
Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi spoke with CBS News in his first TV interview since his release from ICE custody. He spent 16 days in detention and now awaits deportation hearings for protesting the war in Gaza.
