UTRGV international students sue Department of Homeland Security for revoking their visas

EDINBURG, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Four students from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley are suing the Department of Homeland Security for having their visas unlawfully revoked, according to the suit.

According to the lawsuit, which was obtained by ValleyCentral, the students range from completing requirements to graduate with a Bachelor Degree in May 2025 to defending the PhD dissertation and making application for an Associate Professor position.

The lawsuit lists Hugo Adrian Villar Castellanos, an international student from Mexico who is enrolled in a Doctoral Program in Physics at UTRGV and resides in Brownsville, Shishir Timilsena, an international student from Nepal who is enrolled in the second semester of a Doctoral Program in Physics at UTRGV and resides in Edinburg, Amir Gholami, an international student from Iran who is enrolled in a Doctoral Program in Finance at UTRGV and resides in Edinburg, and Julio Dylan Sanchez Wong, an international student from Mexico, who is enrolled in a Bachelor’s Program in Computer Sciences at UTRGV and resides in Edinburg, as plaintiffs.

These four students are just a few of the approximately 900 international students across the country whose SEVIS record has been abruptly and unlawfully terminated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the last few weeks.

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems, or SEVIS, is a government database that tracks international students’ compliance with their F-1 visa status.

An F-1 visa status allows international students to enter the U.S. as full-time students at accredited institutions.

ICE, through the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, uses SEVIS to monitor student status.

In this case, SEVP terminated the four student's SEVIS record and marked them as “OTHER-Individual identified in criminal records and/or has had their VISA revoked. Consequently this ended their F-1 visa status.

However, the students argue that even when a visa is revoked, ICE is not authorized to terminate the student's student status.

"The grounds cited by ICE in the SEVIS termination do not provide legal authority to terminate Plaintiffs’ SEVIS record," the lawsuit states. "An F-1 visa controls a student’s entry into the country, not their continued lawful presence once admitted. Plaintiffs were in full compliance with the terms of the F-1 status and had not engaged in conduct that would warrant termination of the status."

The students ask that the court grant jurisdiction over this matter and declare that the termination of their SEVIS status was unlawful.