Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said that if a person’s visa is revoked, they could start ending their legal standing.

An internal letter to all Student and Exchange Visitor Program staff, which is part of ICE, shows a longer list of reasons why ICE can end the legal status of foreign-born students in the U.S., such as a “U.S. Department of State Visa Revocation (Effective Immediately).” The Justice Department sent it to court on Monday night with a date of Saturday.

In the past, students could lose their legal standing in a number of ways, such as if they stopped going to school, lost their work permit, or committed certain crimes. Lawyers say that students usually have the right to due process before their legal standing is taken away. Now, the letter says that losing your visa is enough to cause your status to end.

The letter shows that ICE has more power. Steven Brown, an immigration lawyer in Houston, said that the new policy goes “against at least 15 years of SEVP guidance.” SEVP stands for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, and ICE is in charge of it.

“The Department of State has taken away visas for many reasons in the past,” Brown said. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you are not an immigrant in the US.” That part of it is only now being tried to be done.

A hearing on Friday by the Trump administration said that the legal statuses of foreign students whose records were recently erased would be restored. For now, the Trump administration said that ICE would make a new rule that will “provide a framework for status record termination.”

The memo says that SEVIS records can now be deleted for a number of reasons, such as “exceeded unemployment time” or “violation of change of status requirements.”

What the memo said was that if SEVP has proof that a person with a nonimmigrant visa is not following the rules of their nonimmigrant status, then the person’s SEVIS information can be deleted.

With that proof as a base, ICE can also choose to do more investigations or start the removal process.

It was made clear in the memo that the State Department can “at any time, in its discretion, revoke an alien’s visa.”

The letter said that when the State Department cancels an alien’s visa right away, ICE should start the removal process. “If the State revokes a nonimmigrant visa right away, SEVP may delete the nonimmigrant’s SEVIS record right away based on the visa revocation.”

It was made clear in the memo that this paper cannot be used instead of following the law.

It’s not meant to, doesn’t, and can’t be relied on to give anyone any substantive or procedural right or benefit that can be enforced by the law in any administrative, civil, or criminal case, the memo said.

Thousands of foreign students’ visas, records, and legal statuses were taken away by the Trump administration in March. Some people said it looked like the government was going after people who have been politically active or who have been charged in the past, like for DUIs.

The terminations were successfully fought in court by many people across the U.S. Last week, immigration lawyers and universities said that many foreign students found that their records were suddenly restored. Lawyers said that the reinstatements happened with little to no reason. As of Tuesday, all students who were affected by the terminations had their statuses returned at a number of universities, such as Northeastern University, Harvard University, and the University of Connecticut.

An immigration lawyer in Cleveland named Jath Shao has helped a number of foreign students whose visas were revoked. He said that the new policy will make things harder for students.

Shao said, “ICE has now done their homework and put out this memo to give themselves the power that judges just told them they didn’t have.” “Students should be aware that even small problems can lead to big problems. If they are worried about something in their past, they should talk to a lawyer.”