Universities across Minnesota are scrambling to help international students after more students had their visas revoked, schools reported Thursday, just a day after five international students in Mankato had their student visas terminated.
At Minnesota State, one international student enrolled at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul and another at Ridgewater College, a two-year college with campuses in Hutchinson and Willmar, had their visas revoked recently, but spokespeople for the institutions wouldn’t specify when or why.
In central Minnesota at St. Cloud State University, a “handful” of international students had their records terminated within the Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the university said they were working directly with affected students to support them.
The move comes after a wave of high-profile arrests of international students. Last week, a yet-unnamed Mankato international student was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and a Turkish University of Minnesota graduate student, Doğukan Günaydın, was detained over a previous drunken driving conviction.
At Minnesota State University, Mankato, President Edward Inch announced Wednesday that neither the university nor the students who had their records terminated from SEVIS were notified about it, and only found out after the university “ran a status check.”
The five students whose visas were revoked will have to return to their home countries within 60 days, Inch said Wednesday. One of the students who lost their visa was close to completing their studies, Inch said at the student assembly on Wednesday. “We’re going to do our best to ensure the students are able to complete their classes,” he said.
At Metro State, the school has 175 international students on F-1 visas, while Ridgewater has seven. Both colleges’ spokespeople said they could not provide any further information due to student data privacy rules.
St. Cloud State has more than 1,700 international students, according to Open Door’s 2024 data.