Mayer Brown’s DC-based litigation team secured a victory when The Middle District of North Carolina issued a nationwide injunction barring the government from applying a 2018 policy memorandum released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which purported to fundamentally alter how “unlawful presence” is calculated for the more than a million people present in the US on F, J, and M visas. This includes virtually all of the nation’s international students as well as recent graduates working at American companies. The Trump administration policy would have backdated “unlawful presence” calculations, which would have caused tens of thousands of individuals to be barred from reentering the country for periods of three and 10 years due to technical violations. A consortium of colleges and universities retained Mayer Brown to devise a strategy to oppose this action. The team included partner Paul Hughes, who argued the motion, and partner Michael Kimberly and associate Andrew Lyons-Berg, who assisted with briefs.