Trump to restore foreign students’ legal status, for now

The Trump administration said on Friday that it is restoring the previously terminated legal statuses of hundreds of foreign students in the United States while it develops a new policy that will provide a framework for potentially ending them in the future.

The decision was announced during a court hearing before a federal judge in Boston who is presiding over a challenge by one of the many international students across the country who is suing over actions the administration took against them as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s hardline crackdown on immigration.

Their legal status had been revoked as a result of their records being terminated from a database of the approximately 1.1 million foreign student visa holders, putting them at risk of deportation.

Since Trump took office on January 20, records for more than 4,700 students have been removed from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement-maintained database known as Student and Exchange Visitor Information Systems (SEVIS), according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The database monitors compliance with visa terms and records foreign students’ addresses, progress toward graduation and other information. To remain in the database, student visa holders have to obey conditions like limits on employment and avoiding illegal activity.

In court filings, the administration had said that it could end students’ eligibility to be in the US if they, for example, turn up in a criminal history search. But hundreds of students in lawsuits filed in recent weeks said their records were terminated based on charges that had been dismissed or for minor offenses when legally their status could only be revoked if they were convicted of violent crimes.

Over 200 students removed from SEVIS have won court orders temporarily barring the administration from taking actions against them, including Boston University student Carrie Zheng.

US Prez says open to meeting Iran leaders, sees N-deal soon

In an interview with the Time magazine, Trump said he is open to meeting Iran’s supreme leader or president and that he thinks the two countries will strike a new deal on Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme. Expert-level talks are set to resume on Saturday in Oman, which has acted as intermediary between the adversaries.

Moscow and Tehran have reached a deal on 55 billion cubic metres of Russian gas supplies a year, though prices are yet to be agreed, while Russia also pledged to fund construction of a new nuclear power plant in Iran, officials said. Despite holding the second-largest reserves, Iran imports gas.