EDITORS/NEWS DIRECTORS:
International students across the country are discovering that their legal status and student visas are being terminated or revoked with little notice. An Associated Press review of university statements, correspondence with school officials and court records has, as of Wednesday, tallied at least 1,118 students at 177 colleges, universities and university systems have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March. The AP is working to confirm reports of hundreds more students who are caught up in the crackdown.
Students who come from other countries to study in the U.S. must obtain a visa, which requires them to demonstrate they have enough financial support to complete their course of study. They must first be admitted to a school that is approved by the U.S. government, and then generally interview at a consulate abroad to obtain their entry visa.
Once in the country, international students must remain in good standing with their academic program, and are generally limited in their ability to work off-campus. After they graduate, they can work in the U.S. for 12 months, and up to 36 months for STEM majors, before they must seek a longer-term employment visa.
International students' status is maintained in a system called SEVIS, or the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. Generally, students' status is terminated in SEVIS when they fail to maintain standing with their program, or when they graduate or transition to a different visa. Terminations, until now, have largely been initiated by schools doing routine data updates.
In recent weeks, colleges have discovered their students' status terminated by the government, a significant shift from past practices. The terminations often have minimal written justification or notice from the government, leaving students with little information on why they are now out of status.
Students have begun to file lawsuits across the country, with a number of temporary restraining orders granted in lawsuits from New Hampshire, Montana and Wisconsin.
International students are also caught in the crosshairs of a standoff between Harvard and the Trump administration, which has made various threats against the Ivy League institution after learning of its defiance against demands related to activism on campus, antisemitism and diversity. One of those threats involves a restriction on Harvard's ability to host international students.
READ AP'S LATEST COVERAGE
— Visa cancellations sow panic for international students, with hundreds fearing deportation
— International students file legal challenges over widespread US visa revocations
— Federal officials are quietly terminating the legal residency of some international college students
FIND YOUR STATE: NUMBER OF FOREIGN STUDENTS FACING VISA REVOCATION BY SCHOOL
The Associated Press created this embeddable map, available for your use, tracking colleges where foreign students have had their visas revoked or their legal status terminated since late March. The map will be regularly updated. Source: an AP review of university statements and correspondence with school officials.
Click for a preview of the map here.
To embed, insert this code into your CMS:
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HELP US BUILD OUT THE MAP
Have you covered a student visa revocation or status termination at a college not reflected on this map? Let us know via this Google form.
FIND YOUR STATE: HOW MANY INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS ARE IN YOUR AREA?
Want more context on how many international students are studying in the U.S.? The government keeps a database called SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System), which covers students with an F-1 visa (those pursuing an academic degree) or an M-1 visa (those pursuing vocational studies). — The Department of Homeland Security keeps track of the number of international students with F-1 or M-1 visas by state, sex, level of education and by country of origin. It also counts the number of students who are studying STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, math). Data is available by month going back to April 2014.
See the data mapped here.
AP has put the data from March 2025 in a Google spreadsheet here. Navigate to your state by scrolling right. The data is organized in rows by country of citizenship.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
— Ask local colleges and universities how many international students are on campus, percentages and what countries they’re from. How many of those students have had their SEVIS records terminated, for what stated reason and what countries are they from? Also: How are colleges supporting international students on campus right now?
— Ask those institutions how much revenue they get from international students.
— Ask immigration attorneys if they are representing students and what they are hearing from clients. They may not be able to share case details for privacy reasons, but can often describe situations in the aggregate and commonalities between cases.
— Ask affected students whether they were given a clear explanation for the decision and how it's affected their plans.
AP reporter Christopher L. Keller contributed from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Localize It is a resource produced regularly by The Associated Press for its customers’ use. Questions can be directed to Katie Oyan at koyan@ap.org.
FILE - Students walk on the Stanford University campus, March 14, 2019, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
