KUWAIT/WASHINGTON: The US Embassy in Kuwait has reaffirmed its commitment to national security as the top priority amid growing concern over the abrupt revocation of student visas of several Kuwaitis studying in the United States. US Embassy spokesperson Stuart Turner emphasized that while the embassy cannot comment on individual cases due to privacy considerations, the United States has a strict stance on upholding immigration laws.

“The United States has zero tolerance for non-citizens who violate US laws. Those who break the law, including students, may face visa denial, visa revocation, or deportation,” Turner said. He explained that visas may be revoked based on new information that surfaces after issuance, such as arrests, criminal convictions, overstays or conduct inconsistent with the visa classification.

“If your visa has been revoked and you want to travel to the United States in the future, you may apply for a new one; a new determination on your visa eligibility will be made at that time,” he added. “Every visa applicant undergoes extensive security screening including checks against law enforcement and counterterrorism databases,” the embassy had said in a statement on X. “Prohibiting travel by those who might pose a threat is key to protecting US citizens at home.”

The statement follows widespread reports that a number of foreign students — including Kuwaiti nationals — had their US student visas revoked without prior notice. Several students said they were informed of the cancellation via email, with no explanation given regarding the reasons behind the decision. In response, Kuwait’s ministry of higher education on Wednesday confirmed that it is actively monitoring the situation and taking steps to support the affected students.

Meanwhile, more than 130 international students across the United States have joined a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully canceling their visas, jeopardizing their legal status in the country, court documents show. The students allege the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency abruptly and illegally terminated their status in the government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database, putting them at risk of arrest, detention and deportation.

The initial complaint was filed by 17 students on April 11 in the state of Georgia. Since then, 116 more have joined them as the administration of US President Donald Trump pursues a wide-ranging immigration crackdown that has targeted foreign students, among many others. Across campuses in the United States, international students have been scrambling as they have discovered their visas have been revoked, often for little or no reason, according to court documents and media reports.

On Tuesday alone, judges in at least seven states including Massachusetts, Montana and Wisconsin as well as Washington, DC, issued emergency orders barring immigration authorities from acting against students after the government canceled their legal basis for being in the US, part of Trump’s broad immigration crackdown. Since Trump took office on Jan 20, more than 4,700 students have been deleted from SEVIS, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The Georgia lawsuit names US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants and seeks to reinstate the revoked visas. In the complaint, which does not identify the students by name “due to fear of retaliation”, the summaries offered for each of the 17 original cases reveal seemingly arbitrary cancelations, with each plaintiff giving their best guess as to what may have prompted them to be targeted.

Some pointed to minor traffic infringements, such as John Doe 2, a Chinese citizen pursuing an engineering doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was notified by his school that his visa was revoked after a criminal records check, but the violation was not specified. The student believes it may have been related to a traffic offence that was closed and, according to the filing, he has no other criminal history.

Another of the students, an Indian national at New York Institute of Technology, said he had been found not guilty of shoplifting, and the case was dismissed. “Over the past week, visa revocations and SEVIS terminations have shaken campuses across the country,” the complaint says. The suit also noted that students’ removal from the government database could jeopardize the individuals’ ability to reenter the United States in the future.

Many of the students who have sued say they had their status revoked based on criminal record searches that found dismissed charges or minor offenses. Krish Isserdasani, a 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from India, is among them. He acknowledged that while walking home from a bar in November he was arrested for disorderly conduct after a verbal argument.

The local district attorney declined to pursue charges against Isserdasani. But on April 4, his university informed him that his database record has been terminated. A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled Tuesday that the government’s action was likely unlawful.

“So far, defendants have offered nothing to suggest Isserdasani is undeserving of a degree after years of effort and payment of tuition, much less should be deported from the United States before completing his degree,” US District Judge William Conley wrote. In Montana, US District Judge Dana Christensen reached a similar conclusion that same day. He issued a temporary restraining order requiring the government to restore the legal status of two Montana State University, Bozeman students, one from Iran and one from Turkey. The judge said neither student had been convicted of any crime, nor had either been active in on-campus political protests.

Lawsuits continue to mount. Local affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union have filed at least three so far, including a case in New Hampshire where a judge last week ordered a Dartmouth College student’s immigration status restored. Lawyers at the ACLU of Michigan on Tuesday urged a judge to halt moves against four students at the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, while the civil rights group’s Indiana affiliate sued that day on behalf of seven international students at schools there. – Agencies