PORTLAND, Ore. — Last Thursday, Sul Ross graduate Aaron Ortega-Gonzalez filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after his student visa to attend Oregon State University was abruptly pulled on April 4 “without any notice or meaningful explanation,” per his complaint.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane ordered a 14-day temporary restraining order in Ortega-Gonzalez’s case and of another unidentified Oregon student, allowing a two-week pause on immigration proceedings while more information could be gathered.
Ortega-Gonzalez is a Ph.D. student in rangeland ecology and management at Oregon State, where his work centers around restoring rangeland after wildfires — a massive and timely problem across the West. Originally from Cuahtémoc, Chihuahua, he enrolled at Sul Ross State University in a master’s program supported by the Borderlands Research Institute in 2021 and defended his thesis in May 2024.
Ortega-Gonzalez is one of more than a thousand students around the country who have had their legal right to study in the United States revoked amid a widespread crackdown against immigrants. “This termination appears to be part of [DHS’s] recent actions to chaotically upend F-1 student status for students across the country on a mass scale, without the provision of notice or due process to the affected students and schools,” the complaint continues.
Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, non-citizens are allowed to enroll in and attend American universities on an F-1 visa, provided that they continue to meet its educational requirements and don’t violate its terms. These visas are administered by a federal database called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which universities use to communicate with immigration authorities.
In a sworn statement filed on Monday, Andre Watson of Homeland Security Investigations explains that Ortega-Gonzalez’s name was run in a criminal database and was a “verified match to an encounter with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on December 11, 2014, at a Port of Entry.”
Watson’s statement does not provide any further information on this “encounter,” which took place six years before he even considered applying for a student visa, but Ortega-Gonzalez’s legal team insists that it’s not enough to go on. “Mr. Ortega-Gonzalez has never been charged with, let alone convicted of a crime,” they wrote in his complaint. “He is in compliance with the terms and conditions of his student visa and course of study.”
Making matters more complicated, Ortega-Gonzalez was terminated from his position as a research assistant when he was pulled from the SEVIS database. He is not legally allowed to work outside his program — meaning that he was essentially fired from the only job he can get in the United States.
By all accounts, he was a student in good standing who contributed positively to Sul Ross. In February of last year, he was chosen for a “Student Spotlight” highlighting exciting and exemplary research. “I feel so fortunate to have landed here, because BRI has such an incredible reputation, and I know firsthand what a helpful and supportive environment this is,” he told the interviewer.