A federal judge over in California went ahead and blocked the Trump administration from giving international students the boot from universities all over the U.S. That’s pretty huge news, right? In his ruling, District Judge Jeffrey S. White in Oakland also said that the administration can’t go around arresting or detaining foreign-born students just because of their immigration status while a case against previous terminations makes its way through the courts. White mentioned that the Trump administration has caused a lot of chaos in the lives of the plaintiffs and other international students.
The Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin was not happy about the ruling, saying that it’s delaying justice and trying to limit the President’s powers under Article II of the Constitution. She believes that the Trump administration is all about bringing some common sense back into the student visa system, and she’s pretty confident that a higher court will have their back on this. The Department of Justice didn’t have anything to say about it. Even though some international students have been able to fight back against the Trump administration individually to secure their spot in the U.S., this injunction is the first one that’s helping students all across the country.
In the order, White made it clear that the administration can’t move any of the plaintiffs to different locations or undo any reinstatements of their records. The Trump administration tried to argue that an injunction wasn’t necessary because they were already working on restoring statuses while Immigration and Customs Enforcement comes up with a new plan for terminations, but the judge wasn’t buying it. He basically said that the administration keeps changing their minds when they’re in court to make the judges happy, and it’s not a good look. The Trump administration started axing the visas of tons of international students along with their records and legal statuses back in March. Their main targets seemed to be those who were involved in political stuff or had criminal charges, like DUIs, against them.
The Department of Homeland Security admitted during a court hearing in late April that they used a bunch of employees to run the names of 1.3 million foreign-born students through the National Crime Information Center, which is basically a database run by the FBI with criminal history info. But here’s the kicker – the database relies on different sources to report data voluntarily, and sometimes the info isn’t even up to date. This is why experts are criticizing the process, saying that students who had their cases dismissed or weren’t convicted probably still got their statuses taken away. It’s a messy situation, to say the least.
