REVEALED: Indian student Akshar Patel's case exposes how Trump govt checks into FBI criminal databases for deportations

indian student deportation case : Indian student Akshar Patel's case exposed the eerie ways in which the Trump adiministration's agencies are tracking down and picking out international students for deportation. The agencies had to admit their processes during a recent court hearing on Patel's student visa status.

The legal status of Patel, who was studying information systems in Texas, was terminated and then reinstated earlier in April. He approached the court for an interim ruling against deportation.

During the court hearing into his case on Tuesday (Apr 29), disturbing details emerged on how the security agencies are hunting down potential 'violators' of international student visa norms. 

A Washington DC judge hearing Patel's case blasted the authorities, calling the termination of records of international students in the SEVIS system "arbitrary and capricious."

SEVIS, or Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, is a database on the status of foreign students. Those not abiding by the conditions of their visa can have their SEVIS status withdrawn, and in worst cases, deported.

By the government's admission, the process involved running the students' names against several criminal databases. The 'crimes' included even petty offences, and in some cases, which eventually resulted in them being let go.

Some 6,400 students were identified in the database search, US District Judge Ana Reyes said in the hearing. 

An official of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) admitted in court that they ran the names of student visa holders against an FBI database: the National Crime Information Center. 

The database had information related to crimes: suspect names, missing persons reports, arrests (including those not charged or had their charges dropped).

The DHS official told the court that Patel is 'lawfully present in the US' and 'not subject to immediate detention or removal'.

Patel was one of the students whose names appeared in the government search. His offence? Having been pulled over and charged with reckless driving in 2018. The charge was ultimately dropped.

Yet, he was still in a spreadsheet with 734 students whose names cropped up in the database search by Trump authorities.

The court heard that the spreadsheet was forwarded to the official of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Please terminate all in SEVIS,” the DHS official ordered within 24 hours of receiving the data sheet.

Thousands of international students were targeted this way in the new 'policy' for finding grounds for terminating their legal status, according to a report in the Associated Press.

In the past few weeks, many international students found that their records were removed from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement database. 

Colleges subsequently warned students of the imminent deportation possibility, asking them to stop taking classes or working.

Many of the students had their legal status restored after court cases.

Some of the students' record was marked 'failure to maintain status'.

Fearing deportation, some of them went into hiding, or left their studies to return to their home countries.