Savannah State Student Keeps Fighting for His Baseball Dream Despite ICE Detention

Savannah State University student Johan Sandoval felt like the world had turned its back on him while he was being held in a New York detention center for two weeks, but God and his love for baseball remained a constant. 

While in custody, Sandoval and other detainees played baseball using makeshift bases made from sandals. 

A week after his July 15 release on a $20,000 bond, the 22-year-old returned to the field to play real baseball for the Albany Twilight League, an amateur league out of New York. Coaches and players from the opposing team patted him on the back and told him how happy they were to see him play again. 

“It’s amazing being back in the field, ‘cause being away from the field was killing me,” Sandoval told Capital B. “For me, it’s my happy place; I feel that I’m in the sky, you know?” 

In early July, Sandoval was headed to a gym near Albany, New York, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled up behind him while he was at a stop sign. Then a truck pulled in front of him, blocking him in, he told Capital B. Despite handing over paperwork, he was transported more than four hours away to ICE’s Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia, New York. 

Sandoval is among the dozens of international college students caught up in the Trump administration’s crackdown on visas that began last year. In July, the administration finalized a rule that will prevent international students from staying in the U.S. for more than four years unless they obtain federal approval. Last spring, widespread terminations of students’ legal status sent some scrambling to hide out of fear they would be detained for being in the U.S. illegally. 

But that wasn’t Sandoval’s issue. His attorney, John Jeha, argues that the young baseball player’s status fell through the cracks because of paperwork errors when he transferred colleges.

Sandoval came to the country in 2022 as a student at Bryant & Stratton College in Buffalo, New York, pursuing an associate’s degree in business administration and management before transferring to Savannah State University in Georgia in 2024. 

Somewhere during the transfer process, Sandoval’s I-20, an official U.S. government document issued by schools to certify a student’s admission to a full-time study program and eligibility for a student visa, wasn’t transferred properly.  But in a statement to WJCL-TV in Georgia, ICE said Sandoval’s student visa expired in April 2025.

Jeha is using the Trump administration’s own argument that I-20 is not the same as a student visa. With this logic, Jeha said, Sandoval’s visa is still in good standing, despite claims that his student visa is revoked. 

“From our perspective, it is still 100% completely valid,” said Jeha, who specializes in immigration law for humanitarian issues, families, and removal proceedings. “The assumption they’re making is just because an I-20 is terminated that his visa is terminated, and that is not true.” 

At the time of Sandoval’s arrest, student visas allowed international students to remain in the United States as long as they were enrolled in a Student and Exchange Visitor Program with a 60-day grace period. 

But on July 16, Trump signed an executive order that would change regulations and cap student visas for the duration of the program they applied to, with a maximum of four years. The grace period was reduced to 30 days. The new regulations are expected to go into effect on Sept. 15. 

While I-20s are associated with student visas, just because an I-20 is terminated does not mean a student visa has expired, Jeha said. 

The arrest

Nearly two months prior to being detained, Sandoval was riding the high during his first season as a pitcher for Savannah State, a historically Black college. He was recently named this summer’s HBCU All-Star Game Most Valuable Player. His grades were good. He and his lawyer said he wasn’t hiding. 

If he was intentionally staying in the country with an expired student visa, he would’ve been dodging the public praise, Jeha said. 

“I was living my best life,” Sandoval said. “I was shining in the HBCU All-Star game, and coming from a good season, good grades and everything. My life was really public.” 

Struggling for answers and unable to find a lawyer willing to take up his case, his sister went to the news to share his story. Then came the outpouring of support, including those from the HBCU community. While Sandoval sat in the New York detention center, his story reached hundreds of thousands of people, leading the family to connect with Jeha and help with legal fees. 

The first two days of detention, Sandoval slept on a hard, cold floor. No one was able to tell him why he’d been detained. 

He wasn’t able to talk to his family and fianceé. 

When he was awake, he’d ask the agents if he did something wrong but was ignored. He could see the judgment in the officers’ eyes when they looked at him, he said. 

Originally from the Dominican Republic, Sandoval still holds on to his childhood dreams of playing professional baseball, but he was raised not to take any shortcuts in life. His parents, still living in the Dominican Republic, would have never allowed him to come to the United States illegally, he said. 

Sandoval said he had no idea there was an issue with forms or his student visa and hadn’t been contacted about it prior to his family connecting him to Jeha, who explained why he was targeted by agents. 

When Sandoval was arrested, he said, his phone was in perfect condition. Yet, when he finally spoke to his family later on in his detention, his phone was crushed. He had to physically write down the numbers of family members he could call during limited phone time. 

Still, he wasn’t able to fully discuss his case with his family and his lawyer for fear that he would say the wrong thing.

“Is this the best way to go about detaining a kid who has a small paperwork issue?” Jeha said. “To send two SUVs with lights ablazing, the ICE officers get out with SWAT gear on and their hands on their weapons. Is this really the best approach and how we deal with a situation like this?”

Crackdowns target college students

Jeha said there wasn’t a way for Sandoval to know the transfer of the I-20 form wasn’t completed unless the university or the government notified him that the transfer of the form was incomplete. Once a university has filled out the form, it is uploaded to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS, to which only the universities and the federal government have access.

The small details of Sabdoval’s case left Jeha flabbergasted, he said. 

“In previous administrations, detention was reserved for people who were criminals and for people who committed some kind of fraud or something like that,” Jeha said. “Johan is not the kind of person that would have ever been targeted for detention in any previous approach to how immigration laws were implemented.”

Since President Donald Trump’s second term, the Department of Homeland Security has cracked down on immigration enforcement, including international student visa holders. In January, Trump posted on X that DHS revoked 8,000 student visas as part of a broader crackdown of canceling more than 100,000 nonimmigrant visa holders. 

In 2024, thousands of college students protested against the United States’ connection to the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Trump administration called the protesters and demonstrations on college campuses antisemitic, calling for colleges and universities to expel students. 

The Trump administration began targeting international and noncitizen visa holders by canceling SEVIS records and terminating legal status, actions often tied to Form I-20 updates, leading to lawsuits by international students. In court, the administration argued that there’s a difference between directly revoking visas and canceling SEVIS records, according to Reuters. A Boston judge later ordered the administration to reinstate the visas, Reuters reported. 

Despite the legal complications, Sandoval is still looking ahead to his upcoming junior year. All things considered, he said, he’s grateful to the communities, especially the HBCU community, for rallying behind him. As of now, he’s still expected to return to Savannah State University, where he said he’s excited to welcome his new teammates for the upcoming academic year. 

Since his release, he said ICE agents have driven past his fiancée’s apartment complex, where he’s monitored by an ankle monitor. 

“There’s no reason to just bother me,” said Sandoval, who now has to check in with immigration agents. “I just keep praying, and I know God is gonna do his part. You know, I’m just gonna keep being me because they’re not gonna kill the dream.” 

Read More:

• After FAMU Signed ICE Deal, Students Demanded Answers, and Were Met With Silence
• After Months in ICE Detention, Morehouse Alum Is Deported to Mexico

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