A federal court in Maryland on Friday ruled that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program must be restored fully, meaning it must open up to new applicants for the first time in three years.
The program allows immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children but who lack legal status to legally work and protects them from deportation.
Isabelle Papadimitriou, 64, a respiratory therapist in Dallas, had been treating a surge of patients as the Texas economy reopened. She developed covid-19 symptoms June 27 and tested positive two days later. The disease was swift and brutal. She died the morning of the Fourth of July.
The holiday had always been her daughter’s favorite. Fiana Tulip loved the family cookouts, the fireworks, the feeling of America united. Now, she wonders whether she’ll ever be able to celebrate it again. In mourning, she’s furious.
Even with a fresh victory on behalf of international students, U.S. universities fear they’re losing a broader fight over the nation’s reputation as a place that embraces and fosters the world’s best scholars.
The multistate effort, filed in the US District Court in Massachusetts on Monday against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also seeks to stop the policy from going into effect while the case is being decided.
Monday's lawsuit, a largely Democrat-led effort, is headed up by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.
Joint coalition lawsuit statement:
A coalition of 20 of the country’s premier research institutions, liberal arts colleges and public universities in the West sued the federal government today to block the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from revoking visas for international students whose studies will be entirely online in the fall.
Frat parties, football teams, and college bars were all petri dishes for fresh COVID-19 outbreaks this summer, and public health experts are warning that we’ll see even more as campuses around the country reopen this fall.
And there will be a whole new hot spot thrown into the mix: dorms.
The administration of President Donald Trump issued new rules this week that could force tens of thousands of international students to leave the United States if their schools hold all classes online amid the coronavirus pandemic, causing panic among colleges and foreign students.
If there’s a cruel way to handle an immigration issue, the nation can rest assured that the Trump administration will find it.
The latest chapter in President Trump’s book, “How to Close Down a Nation to Foreigners” (and no, that’s not a real book), is a pending order that international students enrolled in U.S. colleges must attendin-person classes or leave the country. Never mind that the colleges themselves are still trying to figure out how to start the upcoming academic year as the pace of the coronavirus outbreak seems to be accelerating.
The conventional wisdom holds that most students and instructors alike were deeply dissatisfied with their experiences with emergency remote learning this spring. Numerous surveys of students and parents have said as much, and many college leaders seem to be taking those attitudes to heart in their planning for fall. In announcing that they will return as much as possible to in-person instruction, more than a few have cited dissatisfaction with virtual learning as a factor, along with significant financial and cultural reasons.
Colleges and universities in the United States, already highly challenged to decide how much to move online and lose tens of millions of dollars in revenue, or open for business as usual and put countless lives at health risk, now face added political pressure.