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Judge blocks deportation of UI students; feds want students publicly identified • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
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Date: 2025-05-01
After being temporarily barred from deporting four international students at the University of Iowa who are suing the Department of Homeland Security for revoking their status as students, the agency is now contesting the students’ wish to remain anonymous.
The students’ lawsuit, filed last month in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, identifies the plaintiffs only as John Doe No. 1 through 4.
According to the lawsuit, each of the plaintiffs was admitted to the United States on an F-1 student visa. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has violated their due process rights by terminating their student status without legal justification or explanation.
Named as defendants in the case are Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, of which Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is a part. Also named as a defendant is Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons.
On April 25, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger granted the students’ request for a temporary restraining order, blocking any efforts at deportation. Ebinger concluded the students had “demonstrated a likelihood of success” as to their legal claims and had also shown they could otherwise be subjected to irreparable harm.
The judge noted there had been no suggestion that any of the recognized, lawful reasons for terminating the plaintiffs’ status as students — such as providing false information to the government, engaging in unauthorized employment, or failing to engage in an approved course of study — appeared to exist or were even argued by Homeland Security as a justification for its actions.
“In the overwhelming majority of recent, similar cases, district courts have found orders for temporary relief appropriate,” Ebinger ruled.
In granting the order before the federal government had a chance to argue against it, Ebinger stated the students had been notified that their deportation “could occur at any moment without time permitted to secure possessions or conclude affairs.”
Order bars Noem from pursuing deportation
The judge’s April 25 order instructs Noem and Lyons to restore the plaintiffs’ status as students and further instructs them that they “shall not arrest, detain, or transfer plaintiffs John Doe No. 1, John Doe No. 2, John Doe No. 3, or John Doe No. 4 out of this court’s jurisdiction, or order the arrest, detention or transfer of plaintiffs out of this court’s jurisdiction, without first providing adequate notice to both this court and the plaintiffs’ counsel.”
In a motion filed April 28, U.S. Department of Justice lawyers for Homeland Security argued the case should not be allowed to proceed with the student plaintiffs identified only by pseudonyms — in part because, as a practical matter, the government needed the identifying information not only to defend the case but to comply with the court’s temporary restraining order blocking deportation of the four students.
According to the response filed two days later by the students’ attorneys, the government was informed on April 29 of the students’ identities. However, they argued, the names of the students should not be disclosed to the general public. Such disclosure, they say, would put the students “at risk for harassment, retaliation, detention, and deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
They are now asking the court to let the case proceed under pseudonyms and to also issue a protective order regarding Homeland Security’s use of the students’ personal information.
They argue that while the federal government tries to “downplay the level of retaliation, harassment, and government enforcement” the students might face if their names were revealed to the general public, the students “fear public retaliation, given this hotly contested and socially charged issue … This fear is fueled by emails from the Department of State (giving) each plaintiff warning they could be immediately arrested, detained and deported — and could even be deported to some third country, rather than their home country.”
A hearing on the students’ motion for a preliminary injunction is now scheduled for Monday, May 5.
Students: Homeland Security has sparked ‘chaos’
Since beginning their studies, the lawsuit claims, the plaintiffs have maintained their status as students, are in good academic standing and have not committed any serious criminal offenses. Three of the four are studying chemical engineering, economics or exercise science, while the fourth is working for the State of Iowa as an epidemiologist.
The lawsuit claims that on April 10, 2025, ICE abruptly canceled, without explanation, the plaintiffs’ status as students within DHS’ Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems database. The same day, the plaintiffs each received emails from the University of Iowa’s International Students and Scholars Services informing them of the cancellation and the fact that the university was not responsible for the action.
Four days later, the lawsuit claims, three of the plaintiffs’ visas were revoked without explanation. The three each received identical messages from U.S. embassies, warning them that “remaining in the United States can result in fines, detention, and/or deportation,” and adding that “deportation can take place at a time that does not allow the person being deported to secure possessions or conclude affairs in the United States. Persons being deported may be sent to countries other than their countries of origin.”
The lawsuit claims Homeland Security’s “lack of transparency and procedural safeguards created chaos within educational institutions and upended the lives of lawful F-1 visa holders.”
The lawsuit emphasizes that the plaintiffs are not challenging the revocation of their F-1 student visas but are instead challenging DHS’ termination of their student status to create a “pretext for future adverse immigration actions against them.”
The terminations are without legal justification, have violated constitutional guarantees of procedural due process, violate DHS’s own regulations and policies, and are “far beyond DHS’ statutory authority,” the lawsuit claims.
The plaintiffs are represented by University of Iowa law student practitioners under the direct supervision of Katherine Melloy Goettel, clinical associate professor at the university’s College of Law.
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