Ahwar Sultan, a second-year graduate student in comparative studies, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration April 15 following the revocation of his F-1 student visa. Credit: Christian Harsa | Lantern File
International graduate student Ahwar Sultan was taking notes during his architectural theory class in Knowlton Hall when he received an email from Ohio State’s Office of International Affairs informing him that his immigration record had been terminated.
The April 3 email, however, raised more questions for Sultan than it answered. He had been fully enrolled at the university, attending classes and a student in good standing. He could not understand why this was happening.
He sat in his lecture hall, wondering if he was even allowed to be there. Halfway through the class, he left.
Now, less than a month later, Sultan doesn’t leave his home — or rather, the safe place he relocated to after connecting with people he trusts. His body is sore from a lack of exercise, and he feels particularly down when it’s a nice day outside. He continues his class work asynchronously, and he must leave emails from the students he instructed as a teaching assistant unresponded to.
“The uncertainty is definitely a lot, and there are moments where it kind of gets to me,” Sultan said in an interview with The Lantern. “It feels like a lot of paranoia, et cetera, but I think I’ve also been realizing slowly, like it’s dawning on me, that what I’m feeling — uncertainty and this limbo — it’s come for me, but it has been here for a while for others.”
Sultan, a second-year graduate student in comparative studies and an Indian citizen, is among 12 known Ohio State international students whose F-1 visas have been revoked by the federal government, per prior Lantern reporting. April 15, Sultan — along with Ohio State’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine — filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for the revocation, which Sultan alleges was due to his participation in pro-Palestinian activism.
Specifically, Sultan was one of 16 students arrested at an April 25, 2024, pro-Palestinian protest, though his misdemeanor charges have since been dismissed.
The April 3 email notified Sultan his F-1 Student and Exchange Visitor Information System — also known as SEVIS — status had been terminated for “otherwise failing to maintain status – individual identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked.” The email instructed Sultan to halt all visa-related and campus employment activities immediately.
Monday, Sultan said he received an email to his Ohio State email address from the U.S. Consulate General Mumbai informing him that his F-1 visa had been revoked.
Sultan said he decided to pursue legal action because of both motivation from his community and a desire to stand up to the “culture of terror” he feels the Trump administration has created with no legal standing.
“Partly, it was the support of my lawyers and the community that made me feel more empowered, like I could have been really scared and dejected, and I think that feeling was there, but it was mitigated and it turned into a sort of courage,” Sultan said. “But the other thing was also this idea that if I just sit down and take it, that’s what they want.”
SJP — who joins Sultan as a plaintiff in the lawsuit — said in a statement to The Lantern it demands protection from Ohio State for all 12 students whose visas have been revoked and that Sultan’s F-1 status be reinstated.
“Ahwar, our peer, is a teaching assistant who contributes greatly to the university’s supposed mission through his studies, research, and teaching,” SJP stated. “We hope this lawsuit reinforces the growing precedent in court cases nationwide: international students are not [expendable].”
In an April 8 university-wide email, Ohio State President Ted Carter Jr. said the university has “been in contact with all seven students to offer resources and support,” as only seven students had reported being affected at that time. In a Monday interview with The Lantern, Carter affirmed the university is offering legal support and resources to all affected students.
According to the university’s Visa and Immigration Records FAQ webpage, OIA has access to a list of terminated records in SEVIS and checks “several times per day” to see when new student records are added. If a student’s record has been added to the list, OIA notifies the affected individual.
Beyond informing Sultan of his SEVIS status termination, Sultan said the OIA email included links to Student Legal Services and a list of immigration lawyers. It wasn’t until his lawyers later clarified he hadn’t been automatically de-enrolled that he knew he could still attend classes.
“There was no real support or no sense of like, ‘This is what you can do,’ or ‘This is what’s correct,’” Sultan said. “It kind of felt like being forsaken.”
When asked about the lack of support Sultan said he’s felt from Ohio State, university spokesperson Chris Booker said in a statement the university couldn’t comment.
“We are not a party to the lawsuit and it would be inappropriate to comment on this pending legal matter,” Booker said.
Sultan said his initial email from OIA was the only outreach he has received from the university, and since April 3, it’s been “radio silence.”
“The way I’m taking classes has been fully thrown out of loop, and the university has no clapback for the government,” Sultan said. “They’re just sitting there and taking it. That sort of spinelessness perturbs me, and it perturbs me even more when I see these sort of hollow announcements of support being offered and being in communication with the students who are affected by this. Clearly, it’s just inaccurate. It’s kind of gross how liberally the word ‘support’ is being thrown around.”
According to SJP’s statement, the organization rejects Ohio State’s “shameful inaction,” adding the university has failed to protect its faculty, staff and students.
“If the university had genuinely cared for its international students, it would have taken legal action against the blatantly xenophobic attacks waged by the Trump Administration,” SJP stated. “OSU has failed to provide students like Ahwar with any protection, legal counsel, or even direct communication.”
As of now, Sultan remains in the U.S. taking classes remotely, but his future — both academically and personally — remains uncertain.
“It put me in this paranoia of: I’m learning to live with it a little bit, but it’s just that sense of, at any point, ICE might come and get me,” Sultan said.
Though Sultan said existing in a “legal gray zone” has been difficult, he recognizes his fears and uncertainties are feelings that marginalized groups have dealt with for decades.
“It’s a perennial terror that is intensifying right now to the extent that it’s hitting people like me, who are relatively well-documented and have a certain institutional status,” Sultan said. “And it’s come for people like me, partly because we’re immigrants, partly because we spoke up for Palestine, but there’s always been people who lived in this sort of fear and uncertainty, and now that set of people is expanding kind of arbitrarily. That’s how I’ve been coping with it.”
Sultan — who has avoided in-person classes both as a student and TA — said he wishes Ohio State had filed its own lawsuit with the federal government, seeing as his and others’ SEVIS record terminations have “creat[ed] real disturbances in university business” nationwide.
“I think that’s what this university and other universities should have done, because it’s not just an attack on pro-Palestinian political speech, it’s not just an attack on immigrants,” Sultan said. “It’s also an attack on higher ed.”
Though Sultan acknowledges that non-compliance with the federal government would likely result in funding cuts to the university, he said funding has already been affected, namely via cuts to diversity-, equity- and inclusion-related research.
“If the university is then just fighting for scraps and chump change, then I think that’s really sad,” Sultan said. “I think that a more hostile and a more confrontational attitude is warranted — like as university people, as sort of scientists and as knowledge producers — because the funding has already gone and the interference with our work, it’s already occurred.”
At the top of the list of things Sultan misses from his daily routine — alongside visits to local cafes and group fitness classes — is his architectural theory class.
“I wondered at the end of that day, ‘What happened at the end of the lecture?’” Sultan said. “This sounds really nerdy, but like, I’m in grad school, so surprise, surprise, I’m in school because I like it, and I like going to class, and I like studying and I think I just haven’t been able to do that.”
