Visa and immigration policy: Details on the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative”

DHS swept NCIC database for matches

Throughout April 2025, it remained unclear how the Department of Homeland Security came to terminate international students’ SEVIS records and on what grounds. However, some key details came to light during an evidentiary hearing held on April 29 in the case of Patel v. Lyons, at which a judge questioned Andre Watson, head of the National Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations agency. Watson, who left the department in summer 2025, was a career member of the agency’s leadership.

According to Watson, in mid-March DHS initiated a sweeping comparison of some 1.3 million international student visa records against the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database. This effort, informally referred to internally as the “Student Criminal Alien Initiative,” identified about 16,000 records, which were narrowed to about 6,400 once false matches were discarded.

The NCIC database records all kinds of interactions with law enforcement, including minor infractions; cases where charges are dismissed, dropped, or never filed; crime victims’ interactions with police; and missing persons. Watson testified that the matches were subjected to a “case-by-case review,” remarking that “we categorized those positive hits based on the charge and any disposition [i.e., resolution]. And from there, the appropriate responses were categorized in spreadsheets that were then sent to the Department of State.”

State Department ordered terminations following visa revocations

At the State Department, these records were reviewed by a group under John Armstrong in the Bureau of Consular Affairs. That group, in turn, sent back lists of visas the State Department revoked—about 3,000 in total—and of visas that were already expired, with directions for DHS to terminate the SEVIS records of individuals in both groups.

It remains unclear whether any individuals were actually spared from visa revocation or SEVIS record termination based on a case-by-case review of the NCIC record match at either DHS or the State Department. However, many cases of records termination that did occur involved individuals without any serious, or even any, violations of the law. In the case of Patel, for instance, the plaintiff only had a speeding ticket, which he had disclosed on his student visa application.

Documents

Cite this resource

AIP Policy Research, “Details on the ‘Student Criminal Alien Initiative’,” Visa and immigration policy guide, American Institute of Physics, 2026, https://www.aip.org/research/visa-immigration/student-criminal-alien-initiative.

Last updated

March 4, 2026