US paperless justice: How a spreadsheet became judge, jury, and executioner

The US government recently stripped thousands of international students of their legal status—not through courtroom deliberation or immigration hearings, but by relying on a spreadsheet. Behind closed doors, the

Department of Homeland Security

(DHS) and

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

(ICE) fed names from the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database into an administrative loop that triggered rapid visa status terminations.
For many of the affected students, the first sign of trouble was the sudden disappearance of their records from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the system that monitors the legal status of student visa holders. No advance notice. No chance to contest. For some, it meant a swift retreat from academic life. For others, it meant hiding in fear or hastily boarding a flight back home.

The crime? Not being charged

What qualifies as a red flag in this dragnet? A dropped reckless driving charge from 2018. A mistaken identity report. Even a routine police stop. These minor or resolved infractions—some never prosecuted—were enough to place students on a spreadsheet of 734 names, which was then emailed to a DHS official. The directive that followed was chilling in its brevity: “Please terminate all in SEVIS.”

There was no pause for individual review, no legal inquiry into whether these students had actually committed any wrongdoing. The spreadsheet, a blunt administrative tool, became the arbiter of legal status in a country that prides itself on due process.

An abandonment of due process

Federal officials now claim that this was merely an “investigative red flag.” Yet the impact was devastatingly real. Students lost jobs, housing, academic standing—and in some cases, their ability to remain in the country legally. The government insists these actions didn’t equate to formal deportation proceedings, but many students were already acting under the assumption that their removal was imminent.
A federal judge, Ana Reyes, pointedly questioned the logic and legality of the process. “All of this could have been avoided if someone had taken a beat,” she said in court as reported by The Associated Press. Her words reflect a deeper concern: The United States, in its haste to appear tough on immigration, may have crossed a constitutional line.

America’s promise in peril

For decades, international students have chosen the US for its academic excellence and its professed commitment to fairness and the rule of law. This incident sends a starkly different message: That presence on a spreadsheet can outweigh actual facts. That suspicion is enough to erase legal standing.
When the tools of administration become instruments of punishment, and when digital data is trusted more than legal review, the consequences are not only unjust—they are un-American.