California Judge Blocks DeVos Rule Banning DACA Students From Stimulus

Another judge has blocked Education Secretary from enforcing her CARES Act guidance. Today, U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted an injunction, blocking the Department of Education from enforcing their CARES Act guidance against California community colleges.

The CARES Act provided money for colleges and universities to provide emergency grants to students when the coronavirus pandemic shuttered college campuses across the country. In April, DeVos issued guidance that said students must be eligible for federal student aid to receive emergency grant aid from the CARES Act. 

This decision was criticized by many as it seemed to be targeted at undocumented students, such as those participating in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

California Community Colleges filed suit in May against the Department over the guidance. The suit claimed that the Secretary was “arbitrarily placing eligibility restrictions on emergency relief funds.” 

The lawsuit against DeVos claimed her guidance violated the separation of powers, disregarded congressional intent, and violated the Spending Clause of the Constitution. It said, “Congress provided higher education institutions with unfettered flexibility to distribute the relief to affected students as they deemed appropriate, imposing no eligibility limitations on this emergency relief for students.”

The decision from the judge says that the Department of Education is unable to impose or enforce eligibility requirements from the Department’s guidance issued on April 21, 2020. The judge ruled that any California community college could not be required to accept the eligibility restrictions to receive the money and that the Department could not penalize the colleges on “the basis of any alleged failure to comply with the eligibility restrictions.”

This follows a ruling from a federal judge in Washington state on Friday blocking the rule from being enforced in the state. Unlike the Washington case, the California judge said the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in their interpretation that undocumented students should receive CARES Act grants. 

The judge wrote, “the Court is not persuaded by the Secretary’s argument that (CARES Act) funds would constitute “Federal public benefits” from which most non-citizens would be denied eligibility, nor that the Secretary’s election to apply 1611(a)’s restrictions to these funds as an eligibility condition would be lawful. Consequently, the Court finds that the Secretary’s argument does not preclude a finding of plaintiffs’ likely success on the merits.”

Both rulings only apply to the defendants, so other colleges and universities are not covered by the decision. But these two cases could cause others to file suit and escalate the situation.

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