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'Do You Realize That This Is Kafkaesque?': Trump's Attacks on Foreign Students Stun Judges
"Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one," said one attorney.
Apr 22, 2025
U.S. colleges and universities told foreign students to leave the country when they did not have to do so, as institutions of higher learning scrambled to comply with Trump administration directives, according to a report that came ahead multiple recent court decisions against the government.
Amid defunding threats from President Donald Trump and pressure from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, universities have told "many hundreds" of international students that they have lost their immigration status and must immediately self-deport.
These notifications were based on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) termination of students' records on the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database used by schools and authorities to access visa information, The Intercept's Natasha Lennard reported last week.
This, despite DHS admitting last week in a court filing that the agency has no authority to terminate students' immigration status via the system.
So far, the State Department has revoked the visas of more than 1,500 students, almost all of them nonwhite, and "particularly those who have expressed support for Palestinian freedom," as Lennard noted.
However, there is an important distinction between revoking a student visa and the rescission of legal nonimmigrant status.
According to Lennard:
The revocation of a student visa is not, in and of itself, necessarily grounds for a student to be deported. Yet schools have been reacting to SEVIS terminations, not visa revocations, when they have disenrolled students or advised students to immediately leave the country.
"Now ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever," Nathan Yaffe, a lawyer representing foreign students facing deportation in separate cases, told Lennard.
"Any school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to reenroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration's agenda," Yaffe added. "Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one."
The DHS admission came in response to a lawsuit filed by four University of Michigan and Wayne State University students who sued the Trump administration over the termination of their F-1 status, which allowed them to study in the United States. The suit is one of 16 filed by at least 50 international students facing deportation, according to Inside Higher Ed.
The Trump administration points to the fact that the students' visas were revoked by the State Department and not DHS in claiming that they're suing the wrong federal agency. However, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952—which empowers the secretary of state to expel noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests—explicitly prohibits judicial review of visa revocations.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked the act to target pro-Palestine international students who the government admits committed no crimes. These include Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung—all permanent U.S. residents—as well as Rümeysa Öztürk, Ranjani Srinivasan, and others. Far-right, pro-Israel groups like Betar and Canary Mission have compiled lists containing the names of these and other pro-Palestine students that are shared with the Trump administration for possible deportation.
Foreign nationals—and some U.S. citizens wrongfully swept up in the Trump administration's deportation blitz—are held in facilities including private, for-profit detention centers amid widespread reports of poor conditions and alleged abuses including denial of medical care, insufficient access to feminine hygiene products, and rotten food at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center.
The Trump administration's dubious legal arguments have not fared well in court. Several federal courts have temporarily blocked the administration from proceeding with deportations based on SEVIS terminations.
"How is this occurring? There has to be some regulations for when it's appropriate and not appropriate."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Victoria M. Calvert, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration and directed ICE to restore the legal status of 133 students whose visas were revoked due to SEVIS terminations, many of them following minor infractions like traffic violations.
Akiva Freidlin, a ACLU of Georgia senior staff attorney who filed the lawsuit, said that "the Constitution protects everyone on American soil, so the Trump administration cannot ignore due process to unjustifiably threaten students with the loss of immigration status, and arrest and deportation."
"We believe this ruling shows the students are likely to prevail on their claims and we are pleased the court ordered the government to halt its unlawful actions while the lawsuit continues," Freidlin added.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Michael McShane, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, temporarily blocked the deportation of two Oregon students and ordered the Trump administration to restore their status.
"How is this occurring?" McShane asked incredulously. "There has to be some regulations for when it's appropriate and not appropriate. What regulation is ICE following here?"
Last week, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, another Biden nominee, excoriated Trump officials in an extraordinary rebuke.
"I've got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is B.S.," Reyes said.
"And now, his two very experienced lawyers can't even tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the court can't tell him whether or not he's here legally, because the government's counsel can't tell him if he's here legally," she added. "Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque?"
Last week, the ACLU and affiliates filed a federal class action lawsuit against the Trump administration in New Hampshire for targeting foreign students whose F-1 status was cancelled.
"Defendants' unilateral and unlawful terminations have severely disrupted the educational opportunities of students who are in the middle of their studies (and in the middle of a semester) and who are simply trying to obtain, often at considerable expense, an education in the United States while following all the rules required of them," the suit states.
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'Abhorrent. Evil. Indefensible.' Trump Cutting Vaccine Alliance Funds Could Kill 1.2 Million Children Worldwide
"This isn't fiscal responsibility. It's a political decision to let preventable diseases spread—to ignore science, lend legitimacy to anti-vaccine extremism, and dismantle the infrastructure that protects us all."
Mar 26, 2025
Public health experts and other critics on Wednesday condemned the Trump administration's decision to cut off funding to the global vaccine alliance Gavi, which the organization estimates could result in the deaths of over 1 million children.
"Abhorrent. Evil. Indefensible," Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith said on social media in response to exclusive reporting from The New York Times, which obtained documents including a 281-page spreadsheet that "the skeletal remains" of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent to Congress on Monday.
The leaked materials detail 898 awards that the Trump administration plans to continue and 5,341 it intends to end. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, which runs the gutted USAID, confirmed the list is accurate and said that "each award terminated was reviewed individually for alignment with agency and administration priorities."
The United States contributes 13% of Gavi's budget and the terminated grant was worth $2.6 billion through 2030, according to the Times. Citing the alliance, the newspaper noted that cutting off U.S. funds "may mean 75 million children do not receive routine vaccinations in the next five years, with more than 1.2 million children dying as a result."
"The administration's attempt to unilaterally walk away from its Gavi commitment raises serious legal questions and should be challenged."
Responding to the Trump administration's move in a social media thread on Wednesday, Gavi said that U.S. support for the alliance "is vital" and with it, "we can save over 8 million lives over the next five years and give millions of children a better chance at a healthy, prosperous future."
"But investing in Gavi brings other benefits for our world and the American people. Here's why: By maintaining global stockpiles of vaccines against deadly diseases like Ebola, mpox, and yellow fever, we help keep America safe. These diseases do not respect borders, they can cross continents in hours and cost billions of dollars," Gavi continued.
The alliance explained that "aside from national security, investing in Gavi means smart economics too. Every dollar we invest in lower income countries generates a return of $54. This helps countries develop and communities thrive, taking away pressure to migrate in search of a better life elsewhere."
"The countries Gavi supports, too, see the benefit in our model: Every year they pay more towards the cost of their own immunisation program, bringing forward the day when they transition from our support completely," the group noted. "Our goal is to ultimately put ourselves out of business."
"For 25 years, the USA and Gavi have had the strongest of partnerships," the alliance concluded. "Without its help, we could not have halved child mortality, saved 18 million lives or helped 19 countries transition from our support (some becoming donors themselves). We hope this partnership can continue."
Many other opponents of the decision also weighed in on social media. Eric Reinhart, a political anthropologist, social psychiatrist, and psychoanalytic clinician in the United States, said, "A sick country insists on a sick world."
Dr. Heather Berlin, an American neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, sarcastically said: "Oh yes, this will surely end well. Good thing the U.S. has an invisible shield around it to protect us from 'foreign' diseases."
Some Times readers also praised the reporting. Dr. Jonathan Marro—a pediatric oncologist, bioethicist, health services researcher, and educator in Massachusetts—called the article "excellent but appalling," while Patrick Gaspard, a distinguished senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and its action fund, said that it was "crushing to read this important story."
The newspaper noted that "the memo to Congress presents the plan for foreign assistance as a unilateral decision. However because spending on individual health programs such as HIV or vaccination is congressionally allocated, it is not clear that the administration has legal power to end those programs. This issue is currently being litigated in multiple court challenges."
Liza Barrie, Public Citizen's campaign director for global vaccines access, also highlighted that point in a Wednesday statement. She said that "the Trump administration's decision to end U.S. funding for Gavi will cost more than a million children's lives, make America less secure. It abandons 25 years of bipartisan commitment to global immunization and undermines the very systems that help prevent deadly outbreaks from reaching our own doorsteps."
"Vaccines are the most cost-effective public health tool ever developed," Barrie continued. "This isn't fiscal responsibility. It's a political decision to let preventable diseases spread—to ignore science, lend legitimacy to anti-vaccine extremism, and dismantle the infrastructure that protects us all. In their shocking incompetence, the Trump administration will do it all without saving more than a rounding error in the budget, if that."
"Congress has authority over foreign assistance funding," she stressed. "The administration's attempt to unilaterally walk away from its Gavi commitment raises serious legal questions and should be challenged. Lawmakers must stand up for the rule of law, and for the belief that the value of a child’s life is not determined by geography."
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'Morally Bankrupt' Biden Blasted for $8 Billion More in Arms to Israel Amid Gaza Genocide
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said A New Policy co-founder Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
Jan 06, 2025
Human rights advocates in the United States and around the world on Monday condemned outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden for continuing to fuel Israel's genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip with a pending $8 billion weapons package.
Since
Axoisrevealed late Friday that his administration had notified Congress of the deal, Biden has faced a fresh flood of outrage, with critics calling the president "morally bankrupt" and his decision to keep arming Israel "willful madness."
"Too many kids still alive in Gaza for Joe Biden's liking," Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian American political analyst,
said on social media. "This is an administration of cowards and criminals and will go down as a historic worst."
Two men who resigned from the Biden administration over U.S. support for Israel's assault on Gaza—which has
killed at least 45,854 Palestinians and led to a genocide case at the International Court of Justice—shared sharp critiques on Monday.
"The Biden administration is ending its tenure as it has acted throughout it," said ex-U.S. State Department official Josh Paul, "with a complete disregard for Palestinian humanity, American laws, and American interests."
"The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Paul and former Education Department official Tariq Habash launched the lobbying group A New Policy in October. Habash also took aim at Biden's new effort to arm Israel with missiles for fighter jets and attack helicopters, 155 mm artillery shells, small-diameter bombs, 50-pound warheads, bomb fuzes, and kits used to convert "dumb bombs" into precision-guided munitions.
"Americans continue to struggle here at home, so the notion that the Biden administration would push another $8 billion in weapons to Israel on the backs of American [taxpayers] demonstrates how unmoored this administration has become from its values and its commitments to the American people," said Habash. "The precedent set by the Biden administration will surely haunt our nation for many years to come."
Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti also denounced the effort, saying in a Monday statement that "these weapon sales won't bring hostages home and don't get us closer to a viable long-term solution that ensures Israelis and Palestinians can live with dignity without the threat of violence."
"Many of the types of weapons reported to be part of this $8 billion package have been used—or are likely to be used—to kill and wound Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a war that drags on because the president and his advisers refused to exercise real leverage to end it," she noted. "This new tranche of weapons will surely be used to the same horrific ends."
Haghdoosti highlighted that "President Biden and his senior advisers continue skirting U.S. laws that should prohibit the sale of deadly weapons while Israeli officials restrict humanitarian aid and seek to make Gaza uninhabitable."
Despite attempts by progressives in Congress such as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block some arms to Israel, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have repeatedly voted to send more—including with the $895 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 that they sent to Biden's desk last month.
News of the $8 billion package comes just two weeks away from the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
Paul said that "there is no need to rush these sales to completion, but it is clear President Biden and his appointees at the State Department do not have confidence in the Trump administration to follow through on their decision to rush arms to Israel with no questions asked, which is why they are pushing through these sales now."
While the current administration is clearly aiming to push the package through ahead of the looming transition of power in the United States, Trump is widely expected to serve as an ally to Israel, as he did in his first term. Haghdoosti sounded the alarm about the Republican's return to the White House with a GOP-controlled Congress.
"These latest sales mark a bleak handoff to the incoming Trump administration, whose senior nominees openly ally with far-right Israeli government ministers who plan to settle Gaza and annex the West Bank, all but guaranteeing another generation of displacement and deprivation that will undermine security for Palestinians and Israelis alike," she said.
Trump and far-right leaders in Israel—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir—"will use these sales to advance that violent project," Haghdoosti added. "It is an utter shame that President Biden has chosen to abet it during his final days in office."
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