On Might 23, US District Choose Allison Burroughs granted a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from kicking Harvard College out of the Scholar and Change Customer Program (SEVP) that enables it to sponsor overseas scholar visas. The federal government wasn’t delicate about kneecapping the varsity as punishment for First Modification protected exercise, and even explicitly tied the choice to the varsity’s failure to make sure “viewpoint variety” on campus. At a listening to on Might 29, the decide made clear that she was going to concern a everlasting injunction irrespective DHS’s efforts to retcon a paper trail to justify its arbitrary resolution to kick Harvard out of this system.
However when God closes a door, she opens a window. And the president is fairly certain he’s a strolling deity, so he devised a scheme to vandalize the nation’s oldest college one other manner.
On June 4, he issued a proclamation purporting to “improve nationwide safety” by “addressing dangers at Harvard College.” Citing precisely the identical checklist of sins used to justify the now-enjoined ejection from SEVP, the president “decided that it’s vital to limit the entry of overseas nationals who search to enter the US solely or principally to take part in a course of research at Harvard College or in an trade customer program hosted by Harvard College.”
The proclamation presupposed to relaxation on the president’s authority below §§ 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), together with 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), which “authorize the President to droop entry of any class of aliens whose entry can be detrimental to the pursuits of the US.” So, as a substitute of forcing Harvard to close its doorways to overseas college students, Trump is as a substitute slamming the doorways to your complete United States to the “class” of overseas college students headed for the varsity.
The following day, the varsity filed an amended complaint and a motion for yet another TRO asking Choose Burroughs to enjoin the proclamation. As they level out, the supposed “class” of harmful foreigners is barely a nationwide safety menace insofar as they intend to matriculate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They’re apparently innocent at another faculty within the nation.
The statute provides the President authority to guard the nation from a category of aliens whose entry can be “detrimental to the pursuits of the US.” 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). However the President isn’t suspending entry for any class of aliens. On the contrary, all of these aliens could enter the Nation unabated, simply so long as they go to any faculty however Harvard. The President’s actions thus are to not defend the “pursuits of the US,” however as a substitute to offer one other means for the Administration to retaliate towards Harvard for the train of its constitutional rights.
The amended grievance additionally added an entire bunch of recent proof that the Trump administration is performing to suppress and retaliate towards Harvard’s First Modification protected speech. Politico stories that dozens of high-level govt department officers met to “brainstorm” methods to assault the varsity, after which Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a “pilot” program for “enhanced vetting” of visa candidates which simply so occurred to contain one and just one faculty. As common, President Trump made certain to announce his animus.
And it labored. Inside hours “the very best Choose (for them!)” issued another TRO blocking implementation of the proclamation and setting a listening to for June 16. Who “will, ultimately, WIN!” stays up within the air.
Harvard v. DHS [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she produces the Legislation and Chaos substack and podcast).
