Demands, counters the next day, setback and mass confusion. International students are in the center of a vertiginous legal landscape as the Trump administration continues to take energetic measures against immigration.
This is what you should know, since the Trump administration continues to try to put legal barriers to the ability of international students to study in the United States.
What is the latest?
Just on Wednesday, a judge granted Harvard an extension in a court order that blocked the administration’s attempted last week to prevent the Ivy League school from registering students born abroad.
It is estimated that 4,700 or more students born abroad have been affected since the Trump administration began to revoke visas and ending legal states in March. Some have also been arrested in high profile cases.
In the last two weeks, students from all over the country were granted a national court order against administration. Some academics have also been released from the application of immigration and customs. Meanwhile, the State Department announced that it is “aggressively” aimed at an additional group of Chinese academics for national security concerns.
But despite its legal losses, the federal government has doubled its efforts to attack international students. On Tuesday, the Trump administration stopped programming new students’ visa interviews for those who seek to study in the United States, according to an internal cable seen by NBC News. Meanwhile, the State Department is preparing to expand its evaluation of the social networks of the applicants, the cable said.
The next day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the Government would seek to revoke the visas of Chinese students “with connections with the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.”
It is not yet clear what “critical fields” will analyze the administration and what types of connections with the PCCH are under scrutiny. The State Department sent NBC’s news to the comments of spokesman Tammy Bruce during a news conference on Thursday in which Bruce said the department does not discuss the details of its visa process due to privacy concerns.
“We use all the tools we have to examine and to make sure to know who is entering,” Bruce said. “In this particular case, the United States is putting the United States first by beginning to revoke the visas of Chinese students as justified.”
How did the Trump administration revoked the visas and the state of international students?
For months, there was massive confusion between schools and international students about the criteria that the Government used to end abruptly visas and states, with little or no notice to students. But at the end of April, the National Security Department revealed at an audience used by the National Crime Information Center, a computerized index administered by the FBI that includes criminal record information.
The agency said that less than two dozen employees administered the names of 1.3 million students born abroad through the index, populating 6,400 “successes.” And from there, many students experienced terminations of their records in the student and exchanges visiting system (SEVIS), which maintains information about non -immigrants and exchange visitors.
The method was abruptly criticized by legal and policy experts, who pointed out that the database is based on cities, counties, states and other sources to voluntarily report their data. This means that the final provisions of the cases may not have, which potentially leads to errors in the identification of students.
In another hearing in April, Elizabeth D. Kurlan, lawyer of the Department of Justice, said that in the future, the application of immigration and customs will not end the states based solely on the findings at the crime information center. He also told the court that ICE would restore the legal status of international students to whom their records were completed until the agency developed a new framework for revocations.
Shortly after, an internal memorandum for all personnel of the student and exchange visitors program, which is under the jurisdiction of ICE, showed an expanded list of criteria for the agency to rescue the legal status of students born abroad in the United States, including a “revocation of visas of the United States State Department (immediate effectiveness)”. Although students would normally be entitled to due process and defend themselves before their state ends, the revocation of the visa itself is now a reason for the termination of the State, according to the Memo.
The Administration has also pointed to students who have been active in pro-palestinian protests, including Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil and the student of the University of Tufts Rümeysa Öztürk, both arrested in March. Öztürk has been released from ice custody.
“Every time I find one of these crazy people, I take off my visas,” Rubio said at a press conference in March.
Has anyone been successful in challenging the Trump administration?
The students of the United States from Georgia to Dakota del Sur have been winning their demands against the Trump administration, with judges that are replaced with plaintiffs and allow them to remain in the United States.
Last week, a judge issued a court order that blocked the Trump administration to finish the legal states of international students in universities in the United States, is the first to provide relief to students throughout the country.
The day after the Trump administration finished the certification of the Student and Exchange Visitors Program of Harvard, a measure that would force foreign students of the University, approximately a quarter of their student students, to transfer or lose their legal status: the Ivy League school demanded the administration. And hours later, a judge issued a court order.
In addition to Öztürk, others who were arrested are no longer in ice custody, including Georgetown, Badar Khan Suri and Mohsen Mahdawi, a permanent resident of the United States who was born and grew up in a field of refugee in occupied West Bank.
The judge in the case of Khan Suri ruled that his arrest violated the first amendment, which protects the right to freedom of expression, and the fifth amendment, which protects the right to due process.
What could be below for international students?
Although the recent national order of national level provides some relief, students can still be vulnerable to the revocation of visas. Legal experts say that the temporary restriction order prevents the government from stopping or stopping students, or ending their legal states. But it is possible that visas can still be revoked. And many expect the Trump administration to respond.
“This is a decision of the Federal District Court. It is not a final decision, and it seems likely that the Executive Branch appeals this decision,” Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic of the Law Faculty of Columbia.
Mukherjee also added that Chinese students mentioned in Rubio’s new statement are probably not protected by the court order.
“What they will probably claim in the Court in defense of this policy is that the Secretary of State and the Executive Branch deserve deference regarding the appointment, the lack of how much, foreign issues,” said Mukherjee.
However, with a violent reaction and the elaboration, Mukherjee said that the policy is legally challenged, with immigration lawyers and activists arguing that it is unconstitutional.
Legal experts said that with many decisions surrounding the fate of international students far from deciding, academics born abroad should remain above all in the country. He also said that it is important to seek legal advice in case students are also eligible for other forms of relief, including asylum or other humanitarian visas.
Razeen Zaman, Director of Immigrant Rights of the Asian American Defense and Legal Education Fund, said it is particularly important that US citizens speak against immigration policies on behalf of students born abroad, since many of these students may not be able to withdraw themselves.
“You must have a certain amount of resources to be able to do that. You must have a certain amount of connections. There are even some people who are too afraid to look for advice,” Zaman said. “American citizens have the greatest amount of protections … and the reality is that, even if they stop at the border, they still have to let yourself in as an American citizen.”
And given the way in which the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to revoke the temporal legal status of more than 500,000 immigrants from four Latin American countries, Zaman said, it is likely that even more groups will be attacked without a fierce defense and protest.
“This is today’s first amendment. It is the Chinese people, the PCCH, whoever decides is linked to the Chinese government,” said Zaman.
