An international student at Stanford who previously lost their visa had the revocation reversed, the University announced in a brief statement Thursday. The reversal lowers the count of visa cancellations to five affecting current students and two affecting recently graduated students.
The update provided no additional details about the students’ background or situation. It came amid a wider national trend, with international students at other colleges and universities reporting a similar restoration of their legal status on Thursday. 12 students at nearby UC Berkeley saw their status restored.
A wave of visa revocations by the Trump administration in recent weeks has reached thousands of international students at hundreds of colleges nationwide. Many of the revocations have targeted students involved in pro-Palestinian activism.
A previous update to the Stanford Immigration website over a week ago stated that six current students and two recent graduates had their visas revoked. The message added that “the University continues to provide support to the students who are affected,” though it did not elaborate on what form this support would take.
At a Stanford Political Union (SPU) event this month, University president Jonathan Levin ’94 said the revocations affecting Stanford students arose from “idiosyncratic” reasons and were not related to activism. He noted that there was “no consistent pattern in any country” across the revocations, and said the students would receive individual assistance from the University for their academic progress.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also requested last month that Stanford turn over aggregate information about Chinese international students, including the institutions they previously attended and current involvement in University research.
The visa revocations have contributed to anxiety among international students at U.S. colleges and universities, including over the attachment of their names to op-eds in campus newspapers. Last month, Department of Homeland Security agents detained Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish citizen who co-authored an article in The Tufts Daily that criticized Tufts’ response to pro-Palestine activism.
The Daily has reached out to the University and the Bechtel International Center for comment on their support for international students, the visa revocations and recent reversal.
This story is breaking and will be updated.