"A Little Bit Like Terrorism"

COLBY

Okay. We’re back in the Spring semester of 2025. April 10th.

And news just broke that Fordham has signed on to an amicus brief. For those who don’t know, an amicus brief is basically a letter that you write to a judge in a court case. It’s kind of like an open letter, it’s going to be made public. But often it’s specifically from people who would be impacted by the outcome of the case.

So, what Fordham did was sign on to a big letter, with 85 other colleges and associations.  The letter publicly condemned the Trump Administration’s actions surrounding all the visa revocations and SEVIS terminations. 

In a sense, this is Fordham’s answer to all those questions we talked about in Chapter 4. 

Remember those questions? There were a lot of them.

How far are you willing to go to act on the beliefs you hold so dear?

When you believe something is wrong — how do you fight it? Loudly or softly?

What Should Fordham Do Next? Should Fordham stay quiet, and silently serve? Should Fordham declare sanctuary loudly?

By signing on — by staking its claim with this amicus brief — Fordham is taking a stance. It is standing up for its beliefs. 

There’s a part of this that is still a little fuzzy. The amicus brief that Fordham signed on to does not argue that the Trump Administration broke the law. It says the actions were harmful. But it doesn’t say they violated the constitution.

But the big lawsuit that this amicus brief supports, does argue that. It says the Trump Administration violated the constitutional rights of international students across the country. Specifically the First Amendment right to free speech. And the Fifth Amendment right to due process. So the lawsuit went all the way. Called it illegal. 

But the brief Fordham supported doesn’t. 

Actually, as far as we can tell, Fordham hasn’t taken a stance on whether all this visa turmoil was illegal.

When I asked Fordham President Tania Tetlow point blank in October, 2025, she didn’t give us a straight answer.

COLBY

Do you think, do you have a stance, does Fordham have a stance on whether these actions were illegal? 

TETLOW

That was litigated by others and we filed an amicus brief arguing that it was not following normal policies and procedures. 

COLBY

When I read the amicus brief, I thought I understood it as not an argument that what the Trump administration was doing was illegal, but that it was just harmful. Am I misunderstanding? 

TETLOW

You know, honestly, I'd have to go back and look at it. Because there has been a lot of water under the bridge between now and then...

COLBY

And to be clear, this amicus brief was President Tetlow’s call. Here’s her Chief of Staff, Mike Trerotola:

COLBY

The decision to, for example, join the amicus brief, that wasn’t a decision made by the working group? 

MIKE

No. 

COLBY

Gotcha. 

MIKE

They would have been informed. President Tetlow has to make that decision on behalf of Fordham.

COLBY

What all this means is that Fordham Admin is not yet taking a stance on whether the visa revocations and SEVIS terminations were illegal. 

But this brief was still a monumental move — for some students.

MICHAEL

The reason why that was so powerful and so important for many of us, and eased a lot of our concerns, is because that’s a public stance.

COLBY

This is student activist Michael Magazine.

MICHAEL

You can’t now change your mind a month later. You can’t walk back what you already did. You already burnt that bridge, and so you have to stand on it. And so all the people looking at your university know that’s your public stance. That’s your legal stance. That’s what you're willing to do, as you've told the federal government. Like, this is how you stand on the issue, and you’re willing to unite on that.

COLBY

Michael had been looking, pushing for Fordham to take a big public stance. But other international students found this reassuring as well. 

Like Riya. She’s from India. She had been worried Fordham wouldn’t stand up against the visa turmoil at all. And so signing onto the amicus brief...

RIYA

That was so refreshing to see, because I, initially, didn’t expect to see the school do much to stop that happening. But seeing such active communication with other schools to stand against that was very very reassuring.

COLBY

And yet, that wasn’t everybody’s take. 

The Fordham community was divided on what to do, and how to feel about it all. And some people, like this international student from Peru, were even more worried after this amicus brief.

GUADALUPE

So, because Fordham did that lawsuit with other universities, there was this feeling around the international students at Fordham that we were therefore put on — as a target.

COLBY

This is Guadalupe. That’s not her real name. We’re keeping her anonymous, as she wished, because she’s worried about her safety. 

GUADALUPE

So, they’re going against him, so he’s just going to deport more of your students, you know? So even though it was so significant for us, that Fordham stood up, legally, where other universities, like Columbia for example, haven't. That was real significant. It also made it scary that, well now maybe we’re on his hit-list, you know?

COLBY

This amicus brief was just one moment in the rest of the story of the Spring 2025 semester. 

Today, we’re zooming out, and watching the months of April and May come and go. We’re tracking how Fordham stood up — like with this amicus brief — and in a few instances, sat down.

Our show today is divided into three acts.

Act 1 - More SEVIS terminations at Fordham. And lawsuits begin to pile up.

Act 2 - How the SEVIS terminations came to an end, at a courthouse in Boston.

Act 3 - Actual, real, devastating visa revocations, in the middle of May.

And then, as the dust settles on this period in Fordham’s history, we’re asking a big question: What was this? And how has it changed this university?

You’re listening to REVOKED? 

I’m your host, Colby McCaskill. 

This is Chapter 5: “A Little Bit Like Terrorism.”

COLBY

Act I

Alright. So Chapter 3 was the story of how students found out about the second SEVIS termination at Fordham. Elena, our producer, is now going to bring you the story of the day after that. How there were even more SEVIS terminations. 

And then we’re going to zoom out as colleges and universities across the country sue the Federal government over these actions.

Here’s Elena.

ELENA

That same day the news breaks about the amicus brief, news breaks that two more SEVIS records had been terminated. What had actually happened was that one was terminated on April 9th, and another on April 10th.

But by April 10th, news breaks that there were two more. A total of 4 SEVIS record terminations.

By the way, we don’t have any evidence that the amicus brief caused these two SEVIS termations. 

But I do want to hone-in on one thing: How Fordham Admin informed the community. Remember what we talked about in Chapter 3? About the page Fordham created on their website? The one that was updated with new information? That’s called the Update on Evolving Political Landscapes webpage. 

And that’s how Fordham announced, if you want to call it that, these two additional SEVIS terminations. Instead of an all school email — like the first and second termination — Fordham used this new page on their website. 

Mike Trerotola, chief of staff to President Tetlow, explained that the—

MIKE

Evolving Political Landscape page was run by our communications department.

ELENA

That is — Fordham Administration’s department that handles communicating with press and the public.

MIKE

And so, what we would do is we would get those groups together and we would get those questions.

ELENA

As in, the Tiger Team would meet, and brainstorm questions.

MIKE

Then we would craft responses that we put on there. And often we would send it out to that working group to say: is this right, are we missing anything further?

ELENA

And by using this website, Fordham Admin is, again, living out their answer to that whole lightning rod conundrum we discussed in Chapter 4. 

By not emailing the whole school, they’re flying under the radar. They’re getting the information out there. But not being as loud about it as they were in the beginning. 

Stand up with the amicus brief. 

Sit down with the additional SEVIS terminations. 

Was that the right move? Whatever your opinion on it, it certainly was a move. And it just goes to show how Fordham was actively puzzling through this. As it was all happening. As it was all ramping up.

And it was ramping up. One of the ways you can tell is by looking at the amount of lawsuits. Students, colleges, academic associations began suing the federal government in spring of 2025.

There was the American Association of University Professors v. Rubio. That’s the lawsuit Fordham supported with an amicus brief.

And there were many more:

Gunaydin v. Trump. A student in Minnesota was actually arrested and detained over a visa revocation. He sued. Filed on March 30th. 

Patel v. Lyons. A student in Wisconsin found out their SEVIS record was terminated. And sued. Filed on April 11th. 

Isserdasani v. Noem. Two students, one in Wisconsin, the other in Iowa, sued DHS over SEVIS terminations. April 14th. 

In one case, one hundred and thirty-three students joined a lawsuit against the then Attorney General over SEVIS terminations. That case is called Jane Doe 1 v. Bondi. April 18th. 

And then there was a huge lawsuit filed by a group of colleges against the government. That one’s called the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration v. Bondi. April 24th. 

The scope of this was massive.

By the way, all of those court cases are all linked on our transcript.

And then, the day after that last suit was filed, it all came crashing down.

COLBY

Now, for Act II. 

In late April, after those lawsuits Elena mentioned, something happened on the east coast. The SEVIS terminations came to an end. 

Here’s our producer Arianna, with the story.

ARIANNA

Friday morning, April 25th, 2025. It’s been three weeks since the first SEVIS record was terminated at Fordham University. And ever since that initial spark of protest, the campus has been largely quiet. Something’s about to make it stir. But that something is not in New York. I know, I know our story is at Fordham, in New York City. Bear with me for just a second, because I really want you to get a glimpse into these SEVIS terminations and visa revocations. 

This part of our story starts in Boston. Friday morning, like I said. It’s kind of cloudy out. High 50s. 10 degrees in Celsius. A warming spring day.

A lawyer for the US Government, his name is Mark. Mark Sauter. He gets an update from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s ICE. And ICE tells him something big. Something that is going to change his day. And the day of hundreds of students across the country.

Within ten minutes, he emailed the update to a couple of lawyers and a judge. Both of which he’s scheduled to see later. 

We found these court documents online. They’re linked on our website if you want to read them too.

What ICE tells the government lawyer is that the agency will begin reinstating terminated SEVIS records. It’s 10:43 AM on the East Coast. 

SEVIS record terminations are about to end.

ARIANNA

You know, we asked a lot of people what exactly Fordham did to get these SEIVS records back. And we didn’t get a really satisfying answer.

What we did hear multiple times is that one day the records were just somehow reinstated.

COLBY

How did Fordham get these visas back? From what we see they just came back in April and then in May. But how? 

TETLOW

It wasn't specific to us. So, there was litigation. I'll send you to the news to figure out exactly the procedural history of all of that. But the State Department seemingly reversed course and returned visas across the country that had been suspended in this way. 

ARIANNA

That’s President Tetlow. And here’s Carey Kasten.

COLBY

Did Fordham pull strings to make that happen? Or was that...

CAREY

It happened nationally. 

ARIANNA

Okay, so it wasn’t specific to Fordham. It happened nationally. But did Fordham do anything to get them back? Annika Hinze was a little skeptical.

ANNIKA

Beyond providing legal counsel, I don’t know what else Fordham could have done...

ARIANNA

But from what Carey vaguely remembers, there was action.

CAREY

No, but Fordham pulled serious strings to get people’s visas back. And to get — I don’t remember all the different announcements that were made. You should talk to Sal Longarino in the office of — OIS, I don’t know what it stands for. The Office of International services, maybe. Sal Longarino. 

ARIANNA

As we told you in Chapter 3, we did reach out to Sal Longarino in the Office of International Services. Colby sent him two emails. One in May 2025. Another in October 2025. And finally we did officially request an interview through Fordham itself. Fordham Admin didn’t outright deny an interview. But instead offered a different official to interview, instead of Sal. So, in our book, that’s Fordham declining the interview request.

We tried to see if there was some kind of government lobbying Fordham did to reinstate these SEVIS records. We couldn’t find any. So we asked Fordham admin directly. Their answer leads us to believe they didn’t.

They kind of side-stepped the question. They told us how Fordham is a part of a few academic associations, and how those groups advocated for the return of visas and SEVIS records.

So, for students across the country, this is how SEVIS records began being reinstated. ICE made a decision on April 25, 2025. That note that ICE had given to the Assistant Attorney General in that courtroom in Boston — that was, I guess, a notice of national policy.

It was just a matter of time before the good news would reach Fordham.

But before that, I do want to pause and examine the statement ICE gave to the lawyers on that day. Because it really is revealing.

Here’s the statement in its entirety. This is the whole message that the government lawyer sent to the judge that day. And reading it to you, is Nick Verone, a friend of the podcast.

ICE UPDATE

ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for Plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be reactivated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination. ICE maintains the authority to terminate a SEVIS record for other reasons, such as if the plaintiff fails to maintain his or her nonimmigrant status after the record is reactivated or engaged in other unlawful activity that would render him or her removable from the United States under the Immigration Nationality Act.

ARIANNA

Whew. There’s a lot there. But maybe the most important part of this statement is that first line:

ICE UPDATE

ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. 

ARIANNA

ICE is developing a policy?

In other words, ICE does not yet have a formal policy? 

In other words, the SEVIS record terminations  have not been following a clearly stated, publicly accessible policy?

Which means that all the confusion that arose once this came to Fordham was the most predictable response in this situation! Because, even in late April, after 4 SEVIS records had been terminated at Fordham, ICE was still developing a policy. 

What?

And then you get that second line: 

ICE UPDATE

Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for Plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be reactivated if not currently active.

ARIANNA

That right there! That’s the sentence that changed the direction of April. With that line, ICE reversed course. 

The government is saying that it would reactivate the SEVIS records in that online database. And not just for the student who was suing the government in this case. But for every student in the country that was affected by this!

I mean, this is a huge turn around! This was ICE essentially admitting that the SEVIS terminations weren’t following some clear policy. Let alone a policy that international students could see for themselves. And that completely recontextualizes nearly everything about our story so far. All these questions about why this happened, and if there’s a reason and everything else. Maybe there was for the government official that actually terminated the entry in the SEVIS database. But there’s no way to know if that reason was even good enough. Because there was no stated policy. After it had already happened, that’s when ICE admitted that it was still developing a policy. 

Now, I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. This notice was really about the SEVIS terminations. Not the visa revocations. Different issue. We’re focusing on the SEVIS records, because that’s how Fordham was affected in April of 2025.

But I mean, like wow. When you read that document, it really does put the SEVIS terminations in a new perspective. The government was not following some kind of procedure — let alone a public procedure. 

So, I guess you could say, that these unilateral SEVIS record terminations, that affected over four thousand real living breathing students, were carried out on nothing more than a whim.

Later that day — 

After ICE had told the lawyer about how the agency is developing a policy. 

After the lawyer had informed a Boston judge. 

After ICE had all but admitted that these SEVIS terminations weren’t following any set procedure. 

After all that, Michael Magazine heard the news.

See, it really was that line in that one message from ICE. It changed the course of April. 

MICHAEL

At the time, that wasn’t everyone’s visas. So, we were like: that’s a promising sign. But we didn’t know the circumstances of the individual student. And for one reason or another it could have been restored for something. So, we weren’t overtly like: It’s over. But we were at least like: Oh, this is pretty good, we’re going in the right direction. You know, there’s hope after all.

ARIANNA

Yeah, it was significant. That Friday in late April. 

But there was also a hollowness to it. Because of all the reporting that you’ve already heard, maybe you can see why. 

Getting a SEVIS record restored is like a taxi cab dropping you off at the hospital — after they ran you over. It’s like, this is a good development, I guess. But it’s not an ideal situation in the least. That’s the vibe Michael gave. 

And, honestly, we don’t know what the students who were directly affected were thinking about all this. Again we haven’t been able to make contact with them. But we’d love to interview you, if you’re listening.

Anyway, this was kind of how it happened for the rest of the students at Fordham. They got a text from a friend or saw a post on social media. Two of the student newspapers on campus — The Fordham Ram and The Fordham Observer — they both covered it. They each put up posts on instagram by 10 PM that night.

But as Michael remembers, even with this turning of the tide, there was still uncertainty.

MICHAEL

No one really knew what was going to happen to college campuses at that time, and so there was a very real concern up until that moment, of: Where does this end?

ARIANNA

And then the next day — the day after the first SEVIS record was restored at Fordham — ICE sent a memo to everyone that worked for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. That’s the office that handles and runs SEVIS. 

The memo was a new policy regarding future terminations of SEVIS records. If you want to read the whole thing, you can find it on our website. 

ARIANNA

I just want to highlight three parts of this thing for you right here. 

There’s three sentences in this document that use the word “Should”

“Should” is a very special word. It’s a direct indication of proper procedure. So, when ICE uses it in a memo, that’s the government telling its employees what they’re supposed to do.

First, the memo states the reasons a SEVIS record can be terminated. 

SEVIS NOTICE

Exceeded Unemployment Time

Failure to Comply with I-515A

Failure to Repay the I-901 Fee Chargeback

Failure to Report While on OPT

No Show

School Withdrawn

Violation of Change of Status Requirements

Change of Status Approved

Evidence of a Failure to Comply with the Terms of Nonimmigrant Status Exists

U.S. Department of State Visa Revocation (Effective Immediately)

ARIANNA

And it’s that second to last one —

SEVIS NOTICE

Evidence of a Failure to Comply with the Terms of Nonimmigrant Status Exists

ARIANNA

— When the memo uses its first Should. 

When the government has,

SEVIS NOTICE

objective evidence that a nonimmigrant visa holder is no longer complying with the terms of their nonimmigrant status for any reason, then the SEVIS record may be terminated on that basis.

Information should be entered into SEVIS that identifies the failure to comply.

ARIANNA

That’s a lot of big words. What this memo is saying is that in the future, ICE employees should explain why they’re terminating SEVIS records. 

Because, remember, as President Tetlow explained in Chapter 2:

TETLOW

Well the first question we had was: What’s going on here? Is there a reason for it? And we couldn’t find one. We couldn’t discern one. And one was neither offered or given.

ARIANNA

So this memo is telling ICE employees to give a reason. And I guess you can read that as a positive change. You know, look! They’re gonna do better next time.

But that also means they could have been doing that from the beginning. 

Although, this was a step toward accountability, it didn’t erase the fact that thousands of students, across the country, went through an extremely stressful time for no stated reason. 

The second should is kind of self-explanatory. And it doesn’t really apply to our story. At least not yet. But the memo reads:

SEVIS NOTICE

When State revokes an alien’s visa with immediate effect,

ARIANNA

— right, that’s an actual visa revocation, not the SEVIS terminations that Fordham saw in April.

SEVIS NOTICE

When State revokes an alien’s visa with immediate effect, ICE should take steps to initiate removal proceedings.

ARIANNA

Put simply, they’re saying hey, if the government revokes a student visa, ICE is supposed to start working to deport that student.

But the third “Should” is maybe the most revealing one here. 

The memo says that if the government revokes a visa, ICE can terminate that student’s SEVIS record. But! ICE should not,

SEVIS NOTICE

However, terminate a nonimmigrant’s SEVIS record on this basis until it has confirmed that State has revoked the visa.

ARIANNA

I know this is a lot of jargon.

But this is basically what the memo is saying:

ICE employees should provide evidence and reasoning for any SEVIS record termination in the future.

ICE employees should move to deport an international student if their visa is revoked.

But ICE employees should not terminate a SEVIS record without consulting the Department of State. 

This policy is essentially saying: There needs to be evidence. And proper procedure. SEVIS records should not be terminated on a whim!

And then the day after that ICE memo! (This all happened within the matter of a few days.) The day after that ICE memo, the rest of Fordham’s SEVIS records were restored.

RIYA

Then my mind fully eased out, that now it’s safe, it’s okay. Everyone is in a place where they should be legally protected.

ARIANNA

That’s Riya. You heard her earlier. And like Riya, Michael also felt a sense of relief.

MICHAEL

I was like: Great, everyone, at least on our radar, is safe for the foreseeable future. 

...

And it did feel like it was a win that was won with collaboration between whatever Admin was doing, that they weren’t telling us, but also a lot of pressure.

ARIANNA

But still, in that moment, for Michael, this stuff doesn’t feel over.

MICHAEL

The common census was like: We’re glad that they’re safe for now, but we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple of months. This could be a: You’re safe until your exam is done. And then we’re back on. And that was something a lot of people expressed as a very real fear.

ARIANNA

You know, that might sound to your ears like paranoia, or irrational. And even if it was:

MICHAEL

That was, sort of, the climate of that time. 

ARIANNA

It was not isolated to Michael. And, I mean now that we have so many more facts about this series of events, does that seem like an irrational fear to you? 

Because what the government did was it went and unilaterally changed a student’s legal status — without a court date. Without telling them why. Without even any clear way to contest it except by maybe suing the government.

So even as these records are reinstated, that doesn’t change the fact that the government showed it can — and would — do things that are not normal. Things that the government doesn’t typically do.

And, really, when you look at what happened the next month, in May, you’ll see that Michael wasn’t really paranoid. He was right.

COLBY

We’ve made it to Act III.

As I was working on this story last year in May. This was late May. After the Spring 2025 semester ended. I was sitting down to read through the Updates on Evolving Political Landscape webpage. Do you know what I mean? It’s that page that Fordham created? It’s on its website. It’s meant to be a kind of repository of information on a bunch of the different issues affecting Frodham. 

Anyway. I had read through it before. But only briefly. I wasn’t really expecting anything different. All the SEVIS records had been restored at this point. I was doing a whole read through just to make sure I didn’t miss anything about the events of April. 

I printed it out. I do that a lot when I’m researching. Helps me focus. 

And so I’m sitting at my desk. It’s 9AM in the morning. I’m highlighting and making notes in the margins. And then I read this paragraph:

UPDATES ON EVOLVING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE WEBPAGE

International students and scholars should be aware that the U.S. Department of State has again begun revoking the visas as of Thursday, May 8, in Fordham’s case.

COLBY

What?

I’m a little stunned, honestly. I guess, I just really didn’t think this kind of thing would happen again. 

I still have this paper copy. And I can see myself thinking through this in real time. 

I circle the words “in Fordham’s case.” And I circle “May 8.” And I circle the word “Again.” And I make a note: When did this happen before? And I write in the margin: "They may be revoked again."

I send an email to Bob Howe — he was Fordham’s main spokesperson during that time. He’s now retired. If you’re listening, Bob, thank you for responding to my frantic email. 

He writes me back a few hours later, confirming my suspicions.

I scribble out and rewrite the note on the paper on my desk. Now it says: They have revoked again.

I was late to the party. Fordham had already told the whole international student community through emails within days of these revocations. 

And that’s the thing here. They were actual revocations. The webpage makes that clear too. It reads:

UPDATES ON EVOLVING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE WEBPAGE

The process is different from [the government’s] previous actions.

COLBY

Bob explained to me over email that 

BOB

Visa revocation notices are being sent via email to international students while SEVIS records remain active. 

COLBY

He wrote, quote 

BOB

Therefore, the University is only aware of revocations in those situations where impacted students notify Fordham’s Office for International Services. Thursday, May 8 is when the University first became aware of additional revocations.

COLBY

These actual revocations were not being discovered by the Office of International services. 

They weren’t found out by Fordham. 

That’s how the SEVIS terminations came to light in April. Fordham discovered them, and told the students. But in May, it was the opposite. Students found out — either through their email or their lawyer — and told Fordham.

These revocations also hit different students than those original four. So, in total, six — half a dozen students — were affected directly by this visa turmoil at Fordham.

As classes were wrapping up. As finals were in full swing. That’s when two additional students found out that their legal documents, granting them access to the United States, had been revoked.

And for these two students, I’m sorry to say, things played out much differently than for those impacted by the SEVIS terminations. For the students who were impacted by SEVIS terminations, their records were restored by the end of April. But for the two students whose visas were revoked, their documents weren’t restored, as far as we can tell.

For every chapter we publish, we’ve done extensive fact checking. Calling up sources again. Reading through documents. Trying to corroborate information. And part of that involves sending Fordham Admin a list of fact checking questions.

And they informed us that these two students were actually not able to return to Fordham the next semester. 

I’m just going to read you what they told us.

FORDHAM ADMIN

For visa revocations, students generally need to reapply for a visa at a U.S. consulate abroad.

COLBY

And then in response to another question, they add:

FORDHAM ADMIN

The students worked with an immigration attorney and decided to depart the U.S. Fordham is still in contact with the students but they are having challenges obtaining F-1 visas.

COLBY

Now, in the past few chapters, we’ve been telling you that no student was deported in the spring of 2025. And that’s based on other answers Fordham Admin gave us. They told us no student was arrested and forcibly removed from this country between January and May 2025. 

But it seems as though some students did leave, and have been unable to return. 

I will say: we have one source of information for this. And that is Fordham Admin. Truly confirming it would require us to be in contact with those students who were directly impacted by the visa revocations. We haven’t been able to do that. We haven’t be able to contact or interviewe any of the students directly, personally affected by this visa turmoil. We would love to. If that is you, you can email us at hello@revokedpodcast.org.

But this is the story, according to Fordham University. In May, there were two more, actual, visa revocations. Those two students found out via email. And told Fordham. Those visas have not been restored yet. And that means those students, who left the country, have not been able to return. 

When I got the responses back for this chapter, I was sitting with Arianna. And we read through the answers together. When we got to this section, about the visa revocations. I let out a sigh.

Ah. I said. We lost two.

Okay. We’ve reached the point in this story where we can take a broad look at this issue as a whole. 

And I want to start with the facts.

There were 4 total SEVIS terminations. The Department of Homeland Security terminated the records of 4 Fordham students in the online SEVIS database. This had never happened before. And eventually, in late April, DHS reversed course and restored all these records. 

And then, in the month of May, after SEVIS records had been restored, there were two more VISA revocations. The Department of State revoked the visas of two Fordham students. They basically took away their entry document. Their ticket through customs. Unlike the SEVIS terminations, visa revocations had happened before. But they were still very very uncommon. And actually, the Department of State never reinstated those two visas. And so the students decided to self-deport. And have not returned.

And a couple more facts, to keep in mind. Those lawsuits that Elena mentioned earlier, one of them has reached a ruling. Last September, a judge found that the visa revocations (specifically) were unconstitutional. This was actually the lawsuit that Fordham supported with the amicus brief. The opinion is honestly a great read. You can find it linked in our transcript on our website. I just want to read you one line:

AAUP v. RUBIO ruling

This case — perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court — squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally “yes, they do.”

COLBY

So the visa revocations: One judge has found them to be “unequivocally” unconstitutional. But the SEVIS records cases are still winding their way through the courts. 

To sum up the facts: 6 total students affected. 4 SEVIS terminations, 2 visa revocations.

Visa revocations that violate free speech are unconstitutional, illegal. Jury’s still out on the SEVIS terminations. Not literally. You know what I mean.

But then there’s the question of what kind of agenda this was?

If you’re tracking the news in 2026, you’ll sometimes hear reporters referring to different governmental actions as part of President Trump’s Immigration Crackdown. Or his Crackdown on Higher Education. Or Free Speech. Right, these are phrases used to differentiate the various aspects of the US government’s current policies. 

So what was all this stuff with the visas and SEVIS records?

President Tetlow told us last October that she was 

TETLOW

...very much worried that this was just an attack on international education itself. And of doing it in a way that, if in fact it was just sort of randomly picking on some of our students and students around the country, the injustice of that. So, it is hard to know or project what was going on, but that was my worry.

COLBY

And for it to be an attack on international education as a concept, that kind of makes it an attack on universities. On Higher education.

JENNIFER

Because higher education runs on international students.

COLBY

That’s Fordham Law Professor Jennifer Gordon again. She’s the one who walked us through all the nuances of this visa turmoil, all the way back in Chapter 1.

But she’s not really seeing this as just one kind of thing.

JENNIFER

I think it’s a hybrid. Right. Particularly when we see the president targeting particular universities around student visas. Right? What’s going on with Harvard — that is both part of the attack on universities, and part of the attack on immigrants. But, in the Harvard case, that is all about getting Harvard.

...

And so cutting off, for an institution like Harvard, both the money that comes from international students, and the fantastic minds — the people who come in, who want to learn, who make that community as rich as it is — you’re choking off money. And you’re choking off intelligence. And a university thrives only on money and intelligence. Right? That’s it. And so, when the administration says: we are not going to allow to enter the United States any student who has a visa to study at Harvard, or who seeks a visa to study at Harvard, that’s all about Harvard.

COLBY

Same with the visa revocations at Columbia.

JENNIFER

I see those as a part of the attack on Columbia. But when they started doing it all over, and at places like Fordham, that as far as we know the administration has no particular beef with that, I would categorize that as part of the attack on immigrants. 

COLBY

Full disclosure: That’s how I kind of saw it too. If you want to know my opinion. I saw this as an extension of President Trump’s Mass Deportation agenda. And maybe with an overlap with Trump’s crackdown on universities. 

But Carey Kasten — remember she was a part of the Tiger Team — she doesn’t see it as even a combination of any particular agendas.

CAREY

I don’t think it is a bucket, I think they’re trying everything they can. They’re throwing stuff out and seeing what sticks. And when it doesn’t work, they change course. I think to some extent it’s a little bit like terrorism. You don’t know where it’s going to land. That’s what makes things — that’s what makes terrorism, terrorism, right? You don’t know where the next target is going to be, when it’s going to happen. And there was a sense of that to it.

COLBY

And, if we’re taking a big look back, we need to take stock of not just what this was, but how Fordham responded.

MIKE

I think this was probably the most effective Tiger Team, rapid response, working group — whatever you want to call it — that I’ve ever been involved in. 

COLBY

Mike Trerotola, Chief of Staff to President Tetlow. Mike helped run that team, remember?

MIKE

People understood that there were real life changing — this was a real life-changing topic for a lot of people. And people were scared. And so they had all of the energy that they could, as much as you can at a Jesuit institution — like: We care deeply about our students. And so people got that, and were all in. And it was really effective, I think.

COLBY

That’s not just Mike saying that. That’s the sense a lot of Fordham staff and faculty got in April and May 2025.

KATJA

I think, to an extent, the way others did as well, through these emails that came out from the Administration, and some conversations with people like: We got this, we have lawyers. I was kind of proud of Fordham for not just abandoning students. Which is what other schools sort of did. Who were like: Meh, too bad for you, deal with it somehow. So I really appreciated that. And tried to signal to the administration, and widely: Well, we’re here as well as a resource.

COLBY

That was Fordham’s Campus Rabbi, Katja Vehlow. And, here’s Michael Magazine. Student activist. You’ve already heard how critical he is of Fordham's response. But even he explained that —

MICHAEL

Fordham did provide, at least, enough of a commitment regarding their international students that besides that initial week or two, there was never a point in time then-onward, where I felt that Fordham would go against that value of protecting international students and allowing ICE onto campus. At the very least, if they were to reach that point, it would take significant legal pressure from the Department of Homeland Security and from ICE in actually obtaining a judicial warrant to raid any campus. 

Which meant that, for the vast majority of people, myself included, after having those conversations with Fordham — it took us actively seeking those conversations, but nonetheless, after having them — I was one hundred percent confident that every international student on campus would be fine. 

COLBY

The tape is kind of bad here. So, I don’t know if you really caught that last part. But he said that once he talked with those Fordham Administrators from Chapter 3 — even though they didn’t have all the right information — it seemed like their heart was in the right place. 

You know, for many months, we were asking sources questions, trying to get to the bottom of how Fordham actually responded to this stuff. But the answers we got, a lot of the time, were more about Fordham’s heart — the idea that the people who run Fordham really did care about the students affected.

ANNIKA

I was [sigh] I was really happy with how the University handled this moment.

COLBY

Professor Annika Hinze. Member of the Tiger Team.

ANNIKA

And I’m not saying this because I’m of Fordham or I was on this group. I will say, you know, you don’t always have to be happy with how universities handle issues. But I think this is one where Fordham did the right thing. And where — I mean, I heard from other colleagues. Also, Fordham, of course, was not primarily affected, right? A lot of public universities had hundreds of visas revoked. And so, this was a completely different situation. But I think the willingness of Fordham to provide legal counsel, to stand by anyone whose visa was revoked, at least as far as was it possible to stand by them, realistically, legally and so on.

COLBY

The one example Annika did mention was the fact that 

ANNIKA

I think the University offered legal counsel, at least an initial consultation for anyone who was affected.

COLBY

But because the SEVIS reversal came just a few weeks after it began

ANNIKA

most of the visas were actually reinstated before there were any sort of additional steps that needed to be taken. 

...

I think the University did the right thing. I don’t know what else they could have done.

COLBY

It’s almost as if the best the answer to the question: 'What Did Fordham Do?' is: Fordham wanted to do what it could. It had willingness — willingness to care for the students, to form a Tiger Team, to pay for legal consultations. And that’s the best it could do.

ANNIKA

I think universities, to a certain extent, beyond that, beyond saying we’re going to provide legal counsel, are also finding themselves to be a little bit powerless.

COLBY

Here’s the place where we’ve landed after all our reporting. Honestly, Fordham couldn’t do a whole lot to help these students. 

But it definitely assessed its options. If students were wondering if Fordham would handle this crisis like the encampment protest from Chapter 2, it did in some ways. It was tight-lipped. It mostly handled it behind closed doors. 

But it wasn’t in other ways. Fordham didn’t try to distance itself from these international students. In fact, in the few public statements President Tetlow made about this issue, there was a strong sense of — actually of solidarity and support. 

Even so, there were real consequences to these SEVIS terminations and visa revocations.

You already heard one of those consequences. Two students were not able to return to Fordham in the fall. 

But then also:

JUAN

In that period, in April and May, we were told to have our papers with us at all times, just in case. 

COLBY

Really? 

JUAN

Yeah, yeah yeah. Like if we were — 

COLBY

Wait, not just traveling, but on Fordham’s campus? 

JUAN

No. Outside campus, for — 

COLBY

Once you leave campus, you should have what with you? 

JUAN

Yeah, during that period of April and May.

COLBY

That’s Juan. Not his real name. He’s an international student from Latin America. We’re keeping his name hidden so that he can talk freely, without worrying about his safety.

COLBY

What kind of documents? 

JUAN

Our I-20s. An I-20 is basically a very important document that sort of verifies you as an international student. It has to be signed by the University every time you leave the country. It has to be signed by the University representative, and when you come back through customs, you have to show it to a customs agent.

COLBY

I mean, carry your papers. Really? That’s a real escalation in fear and uncertainty. 

For other international students, this uncertainty became so enormous, it changed the trajectory of their future.

RIYA

That fear was there, that it’s so — it felt almost unconstitutional to revoke those visas, so the fear was there, even for the people that had never done anything wrong. Not saying the people who had their visas revoked did some things wrong. But it’s just when you know that you’ve had a fully clean slate, you don’t expect to be in that position.

COLBY

This is Riya. 

RIYA

But even for me, I wanted to stay, I wanted to search for a job for a month. Give myself a month. But then I moved all my tickets, moved them up early. Left quite soon after graduation, because I was so scared of being in that fire, that I was like: It’s okay, I’m going to go back home and figure it out once I am home.

COLBY

These SEVIS terminations and visa revocations changed the way international students at Fordham thought about this country. About their future here. 

On top of that, this crisis prompted serious questions for the future of this school. In the year since this stuff went down, Donald Trump’s ire — toward immigrant more broadly — has ticked up. And our story about the visa revocations and SEVIS terminations is just a local microcosm of this national issue. 

But as we said at the end of Chapter 1, this was maybe the first time since Donald Trump returned to the White House that the Fordham community began to ask big questions about its role in this new political reality, more broadly.

Politics Professor Sarah Lockhart explained it well.

SARAH

I think the more complex part is how do we support the people we don’t know who they are, and that may not even be the students or the staff or the faculty at Fordham, but it’s their families.

...

No international student is coming here without a visa, originally. International students don’t come   as undocumented students.

...

But we do still have a lot of students whose families might be undocumented. And so, that could be a stressful situation when you’re a college student. Especially right now.

COLBY

And this series of events was also an opportunity. An opportunity to steer Fordham University in the best direction for the next three years of Trump. And whatever comes after that. 

Student activist Michael Magazine wasn’t exactly happy about the way Fordham handled it.

MICHAEL

The biggest two words that come to mind are: A Wasted Opportunity. That’s three words. But A Wasted Opportunity.

COLBY

His question for Fordham Admin:

MICHAEL

Will you learn from those lessons and actually take a stance? Or will you once again continue this pattern of lack of transparency, half-measures. And create a culture of concern?

COLBY

Those are the kind of questions that can take a crisis like the visa turmoil, and turn it into an inflection point. A moment where things began to change. 

If there is any good thing that came out of this season of worry and confusion and loss of status — it’s that Fordham, as a University, as a collective, as a community, as a Catholic institution, began to grapple with its place in this new America.

In our next, and penultimate chapter, we’re gonna explore that role. The history of that role. How some community members are already taking action. How that question is slowly being answered. 

That’s next time, on REVOKED?