17 States Suing Trump?
- fionacsweet
- Jul 13, 2020
- 2 min read
17 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration today in order to halt a new federal rule I wrote about last week that would strip international students of their visas if their fall semester was completely online. The lawsuit filed in the US District Court in Massachusetts points out what the 18 attorneys general call the federal government's "cruel, abrupt, and unlawful action to expel international students amidst the pandemic that has wrought death and disruption across the United States." They are seeking an injunction that would basically block the rule from going into effect.
This new federal rule would unfortunately cause schools to have to choose between keeping their international students enrolled and protecting the health and safety of all students. The lawsuit names the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement as defendants. California filed suit against the federal government last week after Harvard and MIT filed similar suits of their own. The legal action was jointly filed by attorneys general for Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia. These states are home to approximately 373,304 international students living in 1,124 colleges. These students bring in almost $14 billion overall to the economy. A group of about 40 colleges and universities filed declarations in support of the lawsuit, including Yale and Northwestern.
I have always felt as if Trump is full of contradictions. He has framed his response to the coronavirus around a plan that would hurt the economy the least. Now, he places all importance on reopening in order to stimulate the economy. The strange thing is that this new rule that would have sent back many international students would have hurt the economy greatly.
In addition, it is looking more and more likely that colleges will have a hard time opening for any in-person classes during fall semester, which makes it important for this new rule to be blocked. As a high school student, my school is looking to open with a hybrid schedule where I would be going to school for 2 days a week for a shortened period of time. If my county progresses with new cases at the same way it has been, our Superintendent has stated we will have to go to only distance learning. Opening colleges is so much harder than high schools, because one has to assess the risks of living on campus (which are much higher than if just going to classes like in high school). So if my high school opens this year on only distance learning, I have the feeling that many other colleges will be operating the same way.
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