LOS ANGELES — Confusion and concern ratcheted up at California colleges over the weekend as campus officials indicated they were caught unaware by the Trump administration's cancellation of the visas of dozens of international students.

On Sunday, UCLA confirmed that federal authorities last week revoked the visas of 12 community members: six current students and six recent graduates. In a campus message, Chancellor Julio Frenk implied the government had not notified UCLA ahead of time. The issues were found during a "routine audit" of an immigrant student database connected to the Department of Homeland Security, he said. The government had shifted students' status and canceled their visas from the State Department.

"The termination notices indicate that all terminations were due to violations of the terms of the individuals' visa programs," Frenk said in his campus message. "At this time, UCLA is not aware of any federal law enforcement activity on campus related to these terminations."

He later told the campus: "We recognize that these actions can bring feelings of tremendous uncertainty and anxiety to our community. We want our immigrant and international UCLA students, staff and faculty to know we support your ability to work, learn, teach and thrive here."

Also Sunday, UC Santa Cruz said the visas of three of its students had been terminated "with no advance notice."

"The federal government has not detailed the reasons behind these terminations," said a campus notice from Chancellor Cynthia Larive. "We have notified the three students and are in direct contact with them to provide support."

Other UC campuses — Berkeley, Davis and San Diego — and Stanford announced student visa cancellations Friday and Saturday. At UC San Diego, one student was also detained for deportation at the border, according to a campus message from Chancellor Pradeep Khosla.

A UC official told The Times that UC Irvine students also had been affected by the sweep. No other details were provided. The official spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to talk to the media. A UC Irvine spokesperson did not respond to a request Sunday for more information.

The Trump administration changed the students' status in SEVIS, a system linked to the Homeland Security Department that schools use to provide information on whether foreign students are enrolled in classes, abiding by work restrictions and otherwise in good standing.

Without valid enrollment status or visas, students could be open to immigration enforcement actions against them. Federal immigration authorities generally only detain individuals when they are a public danger or flight risk but the Trump administration has at times taken more aggressive actions. Schools have not reported federal immigration authorities on campuses.

An anonymous Orange County college student also filed a lawsuit Saturday in federal court in Los Angeles against the Trump administration, alleging their status at an unnamed campus was illegally terminated. The suit states that the student's only legal violations were a "minor speeding ticket and a misdemeanor alcohol related driving conviction" and that the State Department was aware of the alcohol charge before renewing their visa.

The administration's action "appears to be designed to coerce students, including plaintiff, into abandoning their studies and 'self-deporting,'" the suit says. "If ICE believes a student is deportable for having a revoked visa, it has the authority to initiate removal proceedings and make its case in court. It cannot, however, misuse SEVIS to circumvent the law, strip students of status, and drive them out of the country without process."

Since school leaders are not receiving warnings about the changes, employees are scrambling to find out how many students have been affected. Some tallies have fluctuated multiple times a day. At UC Berkeley, the campus initially said Saturday that four students' visas were canceled. It later revised the number twice and landed on six.

Other campuses are still evaluating their international student enrollments.

Officials at USC have declined to state whether student visas were canceled at the campus, which is home to more than 17,000 international students, the largest concentration at any California campus. Student and faculty leaders said Sunday that they had not heard of revocations.

At UC San Francisco, a spokesperson said Sunday that there had been no visa actions. A spokesperson for UC Merced on Sunday declined to state whether the campus was affected, while representatives of UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside did not reply to inquiries the same day.

In total, the visa revocations discovered since Friday have affected at least 45 students and recent graduates in California. They include undergraduates, graduates and people on student visas as part of "optional practical training," a designation employed after graduation that gives temporary visa extensions to allow students to get job experience.

A Homeland Security spokesperson did not respond to a request to provide a total number of affected campuses or individuals in California.

Nationally, similar actions since last week have affected students at Arizona State, Colorado State, Columbia, Harvard, North Carolina State and several other universities.

It's unclear why the Trump administration is revoking the visas. In March, the Homeland Security and State departments detained several foreign students, including those at Columbia University, for deportation. Those actions were based on allegations that their pro-Palestinian protest activities were "pro-Hamas" — the militant group that the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization — and a threat to U.S. security and foreign policy. Many of those detentions are being challenged in federal courts.

But according to campus members, many of the more recent cancellations do not appear to be connected to protesters.

"Terminations may be due to recent or past interactions with law enforcement — ranging from arrests to criminal or misdemeanor offenses," said Syed Tamim Ahmad, a junior at UCLA who is the student government's international student representative. "The students received an email from the visa management system, but it's very brief. It simply informs them of the termination and cites a termination reason as stated in SEVIS. It also refers them to seek outside legal counsel."

Ahmad said he received the reasons for the terminations from the Dashew Center, which is UCLA's international student office. The center's director, Sam Nahidi, declined an interview request from The Times.

The issue of a past criminal case recently came up at the University of Minnesota after the March arrest of a Turkish student. The Trump administration said visa actions against the student were due to a 2023 drunk driving arrest in which he pleaded guilty. The student said in a court filing that he followed through on state-mandated drivers' programs after the alcohol case.

"What's happening now is fundamentally different from what has happened before," said Ahilan T. Arulanantham, faculty co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. "The government seems to be revoking visas and arresting and deporting students based on interactions that are too minor to have been of any interest in the past. People with a reckless driving ticket and who then completed the driver's training, for example. In some cases I have seen, there is not even a criminal charge or arrest, but only a citation."

In a written statement to The Times, a State Department spokesperson declined to share specifics about the cancellations in California.

The spokesperson added that the U.S. "has zero tolerance for non-citizens who violate U.S. laws. Those who break the law, including students, may face visa refusal, visa revocation, and/or deportation. The Department of State will continue to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to administer and enforce U.S. visas and immigration laws."

At UCLA, students and faculty are rushing to aid those who have lost their visa status. An "ICE tip sheet" is circulating to guide students on how to potentially deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Students are also being directed to a hotline for the UCLA area and legal aid from the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center, which is based at UC Davis.

On Sunday, faculty from the UCLA Task Force on Anti-Palestinian, Anti-Arab, and Anti-Muslim Racism also released a letter to the campus chancellor requesting more aid for international students.

"It is urgent that you take measures to protect UCLA's international students," the letter said. Among other requests, it calls for the university to "challenge the Department of Homeland Security for its failure to follow due process," ensure the enrollment of students whose visas have been canceled and offer those who leave the U.S. the chance to complete their studies remotely.

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