Some 90 Chinese students whose United States visas have been revoked are planning to lodge a class-action lawsuit against Washington’s decision to suspend their entry to the country to further their studies.

The collective legal challenge is shaping up following Washington’s confirmation on Wednesday that it had nullified more than 1,000 visas held by Chinese nationals who were deemed “high-risk graduate students and research scholars.”

Washington’s visa move was taken under U.S. President Donald Trump’s proclamation on May 29 in response to China’s suppression of Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms, according to the U.S. Department of State.

Those Chinese nationals lost their visas because of their “ties to China’s military fusion strategy,” and Washington was seeking to “prevent them from stealing and otherwise appropriating sensitive research,” Chad Wolf, the acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said earlier.

They accounted for a “small subset” of those who were applying for entry, and “legitimate” students and scholars were still welcomed to the U.S., the State Department said.

Beijing on Thursday criticized Washington’s “outright political persecution and racial discrimination.” Foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that refusing students and scholars' entry to the U.S. “seriously violates the human rights of these Chinese students.” He said China reserved the right to respond further to the entry ban.

A survey of the affected Chinese students shows that many of them are undergraduates of the seven institutions under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin Engineering University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Nanjing University of Science and Technology — as well as Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

Most of them are reading science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Some are studying at secondary schools affiliated with these universities.

One internet user, writing online on Wednesday, claimed his U.S. F1 student visa had been revoked and that he was teaming up with some other 40 affected students to launch a class action against the U.S. government.

The user said he and other students who were supposed to travel to the U.S. were now stuck in China. He also posted a written response from an attorney, who urged them to “form the biggest coalition” to take legal action soon as the visa cancelation might be extended after the current order expired on Dec. 31.

By Thursday, 90 people had pledged to take part in the lawsuit.

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