F-1 Revoked: SEVIS Crackdown Still Haunts Students

The nightmare isn’t over for Indian students in the US. A recent social media post reveals that even F-1 students whose SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) status was reactivated, after the court-ordered reversal, are still getting stuck in administrative limbo.

One student, among the 1,800+ whose F-1 visa and SEVIS were revoked earlier this year, left the US, got their SEVIS record restored, secured a new I-20, and reapplied for a visa. All of this is only to face administrative processing with no visa approval. No arrest, no case, no explanation.

This isn’t an isolated case. While ICE paused SEVIS terminations, visa revocations by the State Department remain in full force. What’s worse is that people are seeing “administrative processing” as the new soft denial.

Netizens offered a grim reality: SEVIS terminations were based on extreme vetting, often triggered by minor infractions or even social media posts. Thus implying that the line between national security and political silencing is getting dangerously thin.

The US may have walked back some of the damage legally, but in practice, the crackdown hasn’t slowed. Reactivating SEVIS means little if students can’t get back into the country.