In an effort to reinstate the status of any international student in New England who has had their visa wrongfully revoked, the American Civil Liberties Union is suing U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement — whose Chicago office is seen in the photo above — and ICE’s Boston field office, as well as the Department of Homeland Security and both federal agencies’ leaders. Erin Hooley/Associated Press

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to reinstate the status of any international student in New England who has had their visa wrongfully revoked.

The ACLU says it is representing more than 100 international students in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico who had their immigration status terminated, although it is unclear if any international students in Maine have been impacted.

Across the county, more than 1,600 students are known to have lost their visas in 2025, according to Inside Higher Ed. The changes are part of a Trump administration crackdown on foreign students. Students who have lost visas have been told to leave the country immediately, in a break from past procedures that allowed them to retain legal residency status while they finish their studies.

The ACLU’s lawsuit argues that the five named plaintiffs, who are international students from India and China studying in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, and others who have lost their visa status face harms like detention, deportation, financial hardship and the disruption of their academic progress.

The organization is asking a judge to reinstate the students’ visas and prevent the government from unilaterally revoking them in the future.

Maine is one of the few states — and the only state in New England — to have no reported instances of international students having their visas revoked. But a spokesperson for the ACLU of Maine, Samuel Crankshaw, said the organization believes they exist.

“At this time, we suspect there are students in Maine who have been affected by the administration’s actions, though we have not identified any yet,” Crankshaw said. “Any students affected whom we may not yet know about or may be affected in the future would be covered by this, which is why we are part of it.”

In 2024, Maine had more than 2,000 international students, most of whom were from China (18%) and Canada (15%). The state ranks 47th nationally for its number of international students, according to Open Doors, an information resource from the U.S. Department of State.

The largest home for international students in the state is the University of Maine System. Samantha Warren, a spokesperson for the system, said leadership does not know of any instances of student visa revocations at any of the system’s universities.

Colby College in Waterville, Bates College in Lewiston and Bowdoin College in Brunswick have fewer international students. Communication directors from all three colleges declined to answer questions about whether any of their students had been affected.

A spokesperson for the University of New England said none of its students had been impacted.

For weeks, the Trump administration has canceled the visas and legal statuses of international students. Though some terminations have stemmed from known infractions — including minor incidents like traffic violations — others have occurred seemingly without explanation.

In a handful of high-profile cases, the administration has also argued that it has the right to deport noncitizens over their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests and on-campus activism.

A federal judge ruled this month that Mahmoud Khalil, who was arrested at his Columbia University-owned residence in March, could be deported for his activism, charging that his presence in the country posed “potentially serious foreign policy consequences.” Critics, including Khalil’s lawyers, argue that his arrest and potential deportation violate the First Amendment right to free speech.

Early this month, masked federal agents detained Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk as she walked along a street in suburban Boston. A senior Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said without providing evidence that an investigation found Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” which is a U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Friends and colleagues of Ozturk said her only known activism was co-authoring an op-ed in a student newspaper that called on Tufts to engage with student demands to cut ties with Israel.

The federal class-action suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for New Hampshire on Friday, is being spearheaded by ACLU affiliates in four states, including Maine and New Hampshire.

The lawsuit is seeking to get relief for five named plaintiffs, and for all current and future college students in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island and Puerto Rico who have had their visa status terminated without specific reason. All of those areas fall under the jurisdiction of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The lawsuit names the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, that agency’s Boston field office, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants.

Similar lawsuits around the country are seeking to stop the Department of Homeland Security from terminating more student visas.

This report contains material from The Associated Press.