Who is Chinmay Deore? Indian student suing Trump govt after visa revoked

An Indian was among four students at Michigan public universities who have filed a lawsuit against their possible deportation after their student immigration status was terminated "unlawfully".

Chinmay Deore from India, is an undergraduate student at Wayne State University College of Engineering in Michigan, as per his LinkedIn profile.

Chinmay, along with Xiangyun Bu and Qiuyi Yang from China, and Yogesh Joshi from Nepal on Friday filed the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immigration officials, saying their student immigration status in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) was illegally terminated "without sufficient notice and explanation".

SEVIS is a database that tracks information about nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors in the US.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan, which is representing the students, on Thursday, said they "filed a federal lawsuit along with a request for an emergency injunction on behalf of the students who had their F-1 student immigration status unlawfully and abruptly terminated by the Trump administration for no valid reason and without notice".

As per the ACLU website, 21-year-old Deore has been studying computer science since August 2021. He is a native and citizen of India. He first entered the United States with his family on an H-4 dependent visa in 2004. He and his family left the United States in 2008, and he later returned with his family (again on an H-4 dependent visa) in 2014.

After completing high school in Michigan, he enrolled at Wayne State University. In May 2022, he lawfully applied for, and was granted, permission to transition to F-1 student status when he was aging out of his H-4 status.

He anticipates completing his course of study and graduating in May 2025. He currently resides with his immediate family in Canton.

Chinmay has never been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. And other than a speeding ticket and a parking ticket (the fines for which he promptly paid), he has not been charged with any civil infraction, motor vehicle code violation, or immigration law violation. He has not been active in on-campus protests regarding any political issue, as per the ACLU site.

Their complaint registered at the ACLU website mentions that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not provide the students or their schools any meaningful explanation for terminating their F-1 student status.

"At most, what seems to connect students targeted by this newfound and unlawful policy is that the students had some encounter with some American law enforcement official at some point in the past, no matter how innocuous—including receiving a speeding or parking ticket (or even a warning) or lawfully withdrawing an application to enter the United States," the complaint says.

(With PTI Inputs)