International student has visa revoked just days after getting new job, work permit: "It just feels like you're less welcome in this country"
Los Angeles — Hundreds of foreign students in the U.S. with degrees, jobs and legal status are suddenly in legal limbo while the international talent that fuels labs and startups at universities across the country are under threat from the Trump administration's massive deportation effort and its crackdown on students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
"It just feels like you're less welcome in this country as time goes on," said one Boston University graduate who moved halfway across the world to get a master's degree in finance and asked that CBS News conceal his identity.
"The American markets is one of the most competitive markets," he said of why he came to the U.S. to study. "If you understand how to work in the U.S. markets, as a finance person, you could work anywhere else in the world."
After graduating, he was hired as a quantitative analyst and even received his work permit days ago.
Then, an email changed everything. Screenshots from a federal database showed his "sevis record" — the digital proof of a valid student visa — as "terminated."
He is one of more than 1,000 international students whose legal status has disappeared since President Trump took office in January.
Cassie Cai, a Los Angeles-based immigration attorney, says her clients are "very fearful."
"A lot of them change their address because they know that ICE might get them deported," Cai said. "They have reason to do that."
And in Atlanta, immigration attorney Charles Kuck is fighting on behalf of 150 students who have had their visas revoked and are under threat of deportation.
"ICE appears to be out of control," Kuck said.
He believes the Trump administration is using artificial intelligence to target them.
"They said, AI, here's all the students," Kuck speculated. "Check it against every database, every criminal database, every civil database, every immigration database. If you get a hit, send them a revocation."
The Department of Homeland Security had no response to CBS News' questions about whether AI is being utilized in that process.
Most international students aren't eligible for federal financial aid, and so many pay full tuition, helping keep colleges afloat.
"I mean, definitely," said the BU graduate of whether he believes the targeting of international students could hurt U.S. innovation in the long-term. "In the perception of people's minds of, you know, what the U.S. stands for, in terms of the forefront of technology and things like that."
While others are choosing to stay and fight, the BU grad plans to leave the country.
"I want to build a career, and this is my prime," he explained. "Like, if I don't start now, then when?"
