International students in Georgia started seeing their visa statuses changed days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the Trump administration has prioritized scrutinizing international students.

Soon after, 133 affected students from around the country filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia against the officials in the Trump administration, alleging Immigration and Customs Enforcement illegally terminated their student status.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert granted temporary relief for these students, requiring the students’ previous non-immigrant visa status to be reinstated. Other judges in the country have granted temporary relief to international students as well.

WABE has confirmed with the universities that students at the University of Georgia, four students with Emory and four students at Mercer’s Atlanta campus had their visa status changed. The lawsuit mentions students from Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State University, although those institutions declined to verify that information.

Other universities across the state told WABE they decline to share whether international student visas have been affected, including Spelman College and SCAD.

On Thursday, Judge Calvert will reconvene to determine whether or not international students will have their visas permanently reinstated through the course of study.

“We don’t know why their visas were revoked. We’re basically guessing. But we don’t know and that is a problem,” Charles Kuck, one of the attorneys representing the students, said in federal court last week. “I think the hope is these kids will just leave.”

How do international student visas work?

The Department of Homeland Security runs the Student and Exchange Visa Program (SEVP). Student visas are nonimmigrant visas , meaning they allow people to come to the U.S. temporarily to study. There are restrictions on what people in the U.S. under student visas are allowed to do, and these visas do not grant a path to citizenship.

The visa is the travel document that allows an international student into the U.S. to study. Once the student is here, they have to maintain their student status by following certain rules laid out by the U.S. government.

To keep track, SEVP maintains a database called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) that houses all the information about international student visas and whether or not those students are following the rules.

Some of those rules include staying enrolled as a student, not taking unauthorized employment, and not getting convicted of certain crimes.

The visa allows students in and out of the U.S. during their course of study, and if approved, sometimes optional post-graduate work training. Maintaining status with DHS is how an international student is allowed to stay in the U.S.

Did the international students in Georgia get their visas terminated?

The lawsuit describes different things happening to different students.

Some students had their visas terminated, which would prevent them from returning to the U.S. if they left. Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who is one of the attorneys representing the students, said in court last week that this could potentially end up with these students in deportation proceedings.

Other students had their SEVIS student status changed to “failure to maintain status.” Typically, this means the international student did not follow rules like maintaining enrollment and not getting convicted of certain crimes.

The lawsuit describes a student from Kennesaw State University and three Georgia Tech students who had their SEVIS status terminated with the explanation, “OTHER – Individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked,” but do not cite specific instances.

“We don’t believe any of our clients are actually deportable,” said Kuck in court last week.

He said none of the 133 people he is representing from universities across the country have shown any failures to abide by the rules. Some have nonviolent misdemeanor charges like speeding or driving while their license has been suspended or revoked, but no violent or felony convictions and no deportable offenses.

At least one student has had no interaction with police at all.

Kuck said if an international student has an interaction with police and does not show up on the SEVIS database or shows their student status has been terminated, the student could be detained by ICE and slated for deportation. Once in deportation proceedings, he said, the student can not challenge the SEVIS termination.

“We have kids who aren’t leaving their houses because they’re afraid the next knock on the door could be ICE,” he said.

What did attorneys for the U.S. government say?

U.S. Attorney David Powell said all students are allowed to apply to have their status reinstated and can contact ICE to find the exact reason their statuses were terminated. He argued he could not present that information in court because all the students in the lawsuit used pseudonyms to protect their identities.

Powell also suggested international students who might not be able to come back to the U.S. could transfer their credits to colleges in their home countries, and those who were in Georgia for post-graduate work training could find the same work experiences in other countries.

The attorney argued the courts should not intervene because it would “interfere in the executive’s right to control immigration.”