“Our embassy and consulates, they are in touch with the students to provide support,” the MEA said.
New Delhi: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has, for the first time, publicly stated that Indian students facing issues with their F-1 visas have reached out to Indian missions, which are providing them with “support”.
The statement came amid mounting concern over a spate of visa revocations as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown that have affected several international students, including those from India.
“We are aware that several Indian students have received communication from the US government regarding their F-1 visa status, which happens to be the student visa. We are looking into the matter. Our embassy and consulates, they are in touch with the students to provide support,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at the weekly media briefing on Thursday (April 17).
The remarks came days after an Indian student, Chinmay Deore, joined three international students from China and Nepal in suing US immigration authorities over the sudden cancellation of their F-1 visas and denial of their entry earlier this year.
Last month, when two other Indian scholars Badar Suri and Ranjani Srinivasan faced the threat of deportation, India said that neither had sought assistance from its missions and emphasised that Indian citizens abroad must comply with local laws.
The latest case, filed in a federal court in Michigan on April 10, is among at least 16 lawsuits brought by international students across the US.
It alleges that officers from the US Customs and Border Protection unlawfully revoked valid F-1 visas without due process and even though the students held active enrolment status at accredited universities.
According to the petition, Deore, a 21-year-old Indian national and undergraduate computer science student at Wayne State University, first came to the US in 2004 on an H-4 dependent visa. He returned in 2014 and transitioned to an F-1 visa in 2022.
He expected to graduate in 2025 and lives with his parents and sister in Canton, Michigan.
The lawsuit states that Deore has no criminal record, has not violated immigration law and has only received a speeding and a parking ticket – both of which were paid promptly.
He has also not participated in campus protests or political activity.
On April 4, Wayne State informed him that his F-1 status had been terminated in the federal Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US universities to track international students.
“Furthermore, he has not received any notice from the Department of State that any F-1 visa attributed to him has been revoked. Indeed, because he applied for F-1 student status while lawfully present in the United States as an H-4 visa recipient, he never even received an F-1 visa that could be cancelled in the first place. He has complied with all rules and regulations as someone with F-1 student status. He does not know why his F-1 student status in SEVIS was terminated,” the complaint states.
The US Department of Justice, however, argued in court that terminating a student’s record in SEVIS does not amount to a formal revocation of visa status.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, a federal judge on Wednesday reinstated the F-1 status of Krish Lal Isserdasani, a 21-year-old Indian student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, ruling that the DHS had violated due process by terminating his visa without proper notice.
Isserdasani, a final-year computer engineering student, was informed in early April by the university’s International Student Services that his student status had been terminated and that he would need to leave the country by May 2, just a week before graduation.
According to court filings cited by local outlet WKOW, the action stemmed from a November 2024 incident in which he was arrested for disorderly conduct following a verbal altercation outside a bar. The Dane County district attorney declined to press charges and Isserdasani was never summoned to court.
“This student at UW who’s just studying, living his life as best he can, being a good guy, not doing anything wrong, can just have his whole life and future ripped away from him for nothing. That on its own is terrifying,” his lawyer, Veronica Sustic, told the media.
The specialist publication Inside Higher Ed reported that over 1,400 international students across more than 200 universities have had their visas revoked in recent months.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio had earlier put the figure at 300, claiming that some of the affected students had enrolled not merely to study, but “to participate in movements that vandalise universities, harass students, take over buildings and cause chaos”.
Last year, India became the top source of international students in the US, overtaking China, with 331,602 students.
