Aaron Ortega-Gonzalez, a Sul Ross State University alumnus and current Ph.D. student at Oregon State University, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after his F-1 student visa was revoked without warning earlier this month.
The lawsuit, filed last Thursday, accuses DHS of stripping Ortega-Gonzalez of his legal right to study in the U.S. “without any notice or meaningful explanation,” halting his advanced research and upending his academic and professional life.
U.S. District Judge Michael McShane issued a 14-day temporary restraining order on Monday to pause immigration enforcement while more facts are gathered. Ortega-Gonzalez is one of two plaintiffs in the case, which also includes another student whose identity has not been disclosed.
A native of Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua, Ortega-Gonzalez enrolled at Sul Ross State University in 2021 with the support of the Borderlands Research Institute (BRI) and completed his master’s degree in rangeland management in May 2024. He had since moved on to pursue his Ph.D. in rangeland ecology at Oregon State University, focusing on wildfire recovery in the American West — a critically important field amid rising climate threats.
But on April 4, Ortega-Gonzalez’s SEVIS record — the federal database that governs international student status — was suddenly terminated, effectively revoking his visa. According to his complaint, no prior notice or justification was given, and he was immediately removed from his research assistantship, the only job legally available to him under visa regulations.
The DHS later claimed that the revocation stemmed from a database match linking Ortega-Gonzalez to a 2014 encounter with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at a port of entry. No additional details about the incident have been made public. “He has never been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime,” his legal team emphasized in the complaint.
“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,” the lawsuit alleges.
The case reflects a broader trend: hundreds of international students across the U.S. have reported abrupt and unexplained SEVIS terminations in recent months, raising alarm among immigration attorneys and university administrators alike.
Ortega-Gonzalez was recognized as a standout student during his time at Sul Ross. In 2023, he was featured in a university “Student Spotlight” for his impactful research.
Now, his legal team is fighting to restore his visa and his ability to continue working on the ecological challenges facing the region he once called home.
Image Courtesy of Borderlands Research Institute
