Lawsuit seeks to stop federal immigration action against students in New England

Story Produced by NH Public Radio, a Member of

CONCORD, NH – A lawsuit filed in federal court in New Hampshire Friday seeks to stop immigration officials from revoking the legal status of international students, including three in New Hampshire.

The case, filed by several state chapters of the ACLU and Concord-based law firm Shaheen and Gordon, argues that federal immigration officials revoked more than 100 students’ legal status without cause or the required notice.

If the court allows the case to proceed as a class action lawsuit, it would apply to all students in the court’s jurisdiction: New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico.

The lawsuit comes as international college students and professors across the country are losing their legal status and facing deportation. The Associated Press put that number at more than 1,000 earlier this month.

Among them are two people associated with Dartmouth College who lost their legal status earlier this month. The ACLU of New Hampshire succeeded in getting legal status temporarily restored for one, a Chinese student.

The federal case filed Friday names three New Hampshire students from India who are pursuing master’s degrees at Rivier University in Nashua. One is due to graduate next month. Their interaction with the police has included charges for driving without a valid U.S. license and in one case, speeding, according to the lawsuit.

Each obtained a valid license and two saw their charges dropped, the lawsuit said.

Gilles Bissonnette, legal director for the ACLU of New Hampshire, said his office is hearing from many students in similar situations.

“What’s going on now in New Hampshire,” he said, “and is the subject of our lawsuit, is the targeting of students who literally have done nothing, have not even engaged in speech that could be deemed controversial, haven’t engaged in any criminal activity, and yet even they are having their status removed.”

The other two students named in the lawsuit are both from China and studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. One has been a student here since 2018 and so far has invested more than $329,000 in his education, the lawsuit said.

These articles are being shared by partners in the Granite State News Collaborative. For more information, visit collaborativenh.org.