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Four Chinese students have moved the Northern District Court of California against Secretary, US Department of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, and Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, on April 11, claiming the termination of their SEVIS status and F-1 visas as “unlawful” and seeking they be restored immediately.

The primary charge of the students, Zhuoer Chen, Mengcheng Yu, Jiarong Ouyang, and Gexi Guo is: “In April 2025, ICE abruptly and unlawfully terminated the SEVIS records of Plaintiffs and numerous others across the country, despite their full compliance with immigration regulations, clean academic records, and, where applicable, the formal dismissal of any prior legal issues. These terminations were issued without notice, hearing, or legal justification, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), the Fifth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause to the U.S. Constitution, and longstanding agency policy.”

They said in their plea they were encouraged to file the writ after the District Court of New Hampshire granted a “temporary restraining order enjoining DHS from enforcing a SEVIS termination against a doctoral student at Dartmouth College”.

They said the student, Liu, “had no criminal record, maintained full compliance with academic and immigration regulations, and received no prior notice before his SEVIS record was abruptly terminated”. They said the “court found that such conduct likely violated both the Due Process Clause and the Administrative Procedure Act, emphasizing that visa revocation does not provide a lawful basis for SEVIS termination under 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(d)”.

According to them, “this ruling illustrates the widespread and unlawful nature of ICE’s actions and supports the need for immediate, system wide judicial relief”.

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The petition sought the following relief from the court: “This lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief to halt this unlawful pattern of SEVIS record terminations, restore Plaintiffs’ legal status, and prevent further irreparable harm to their educational trajectories, professional futures, and immigration standing. Plaintiffs challenge ICE’s actions under the APA for being arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law, and assert that the lack of due process also violates their constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. At issue in this case is whether DHS and ICE may unilaterally strip students of lawful status through SEVIS without legal authority, in defiance of  regulatory limits set forth in 8 C.F.R. § 214.1(d), and without affording any procedural safeguards.”

The plaintiffs are the following: Zhuoer Chen is a student of the Master of Architecture program at the University of California, Berkeley and will graduate next month. She came to the U.S. from China in 2017 to study civil engineering at USC and continued her education through graduate studies in architecture.

Mengcheng Yu is a master’s student in the Educational Technology and Applied Learning Sciences program at Carnegie Mellon University (“CMU”), and currently resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a native of China who has lived in the U.S. since age 16, graduating from Bard College and New York University before enrolling at CMU. She is set to graduate in August 2025.

Jiarong Ouyang is a Chinese national. He is a doctoral candidate in Statistics at the University of Cincinnati, and lawfully resides in Cincinnati, Ohio, having maintained F-1 student status through his full-time enrollment and academic excellence. Ouyang seeks to join this action to challenge the unlawful termination of his SEVIS record by the Department of Homeland Security, which has jeopardized his education, his ability to support his family, and his future professional opportunities in the United States.

Gexi Guo is a Chinese national who earned a Master of Science in Applied Analytics from Columbia University in December 2022, and currently resides in New York City under lawful F-1 status. He seeks to join this action to challenge the arbitrary and unlawful termination of his SEVIS record, which jeopardizes his legal status, professional trajectory, and personal commitments in the United States.

The petition said of their case: “In early April 2025, ICE began a sweeping and unexplained pattern of terminating the SEVIS records of international students without notice, justification, or individualized process. These terminations have affected hundreds if not thousands of students nationwide, regardless of whether they had any adverse immigration or criminal history. University officials were similarly left in the dark, reporting a surge in unexpected SEVIS terminations without any prior warning from DHS or ICE. The scope and speed of this operation have created widespread panic among students, many of whom remain in the United States unaware that their legal status has been silently stripped from them.”

About their character, they said: “…are all law-abiding students who have never been convicted of any crime, let alone one implicating public safety or national security. They have complied with the terms of their student visas, maintained academic standing, and contributed to their schools and communities. Some have had previous contact with law enforcement resulting in dismissed or expunged charges, while others have no record whatsoever. There is no legal or factual basis for treating these students as threats to public safety or grounds for removal. ICE’s decision to terminate their SEVIS records is not only unlawful—it is unsupported by evidence, process, or reason.”

And yet, the petition said of one of the plaintiffs, “On or about April 8, 2025, Ms. Chen received notice that her SEVIS record was terminated by DHS, with no prior warning or opportunity to contest the decision. She was not charged with a crime, and the only known incident in her record is an arrest for an alleged physical altercation with her friend that resulted in no charges. No explanation or basis for the termination has been provided.”

In the case of Ouyang, the petition said: “In January 2019, Mr. Ouyang was arrested for an alleged domestic dispute incident but was never convicted of a crime. The charges were formally dismissed. As a result of the arrest, his visa was revoked, although he remained in lawful status. In the wake of the dismissal, he successfully changed his status from F-1 to F-2 and later returned to F-1 status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (“USCIS”) approval.”

The charges against the DHS and ICE bosses include: “Defendants’ actions lack any rational connection between the facts and the decision to terminate Plaintiffs’ SEVIS records. The terminations were issued without individualized review, factual findings, or explanation—hallmarks of arbitrary and capricious agency action. Plaintiffs were not provided with any opportunity to respond, clarify their records, or correct misinformation. In some cases, SEVIS records were terminated despite students having clean records or arrests that resulted in dismissals and full expungement. DHS regulations do not permit such blanket terminations based on speculative or irrelevant factors.

“Furthermore, Defendants have acted inconsistently with long-standing agency guidance, including ICE Policy Guidance 1004-04, which confirms that visa revocation alone does not justify SEVIS termination. By failing to apply their own rules and precedents, and by  acting without reasoned explanation or evidentiary support, Defendants have violated the APA’s requirement that agency action be reasoned, consistent, and grounded in law. Plaintiffs are entitled to relief under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), which requires this Court to set aside unlawful and arbitrary agency action.”

The petition also said: “Defendants have provided no procedures—formal or informal—by which Plaintiffs could challenge or appeal their SEVIS terminations. Plaintiffs were not told why they were targeted, what evidence formed the basis of the termination, or how they might respond. For many, the first notice of any issue came not from ICE or DHS, but from their universities after the termination had already taken place. Such actions violate not only the letter of due process law, but its core purpose: to guard against arbitrary government action and ensure fairness in decisions that affect a person’s fundamental rights.”