Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Under DHS's new proposed rule, if you were born in, or are a citizen of, one of the countries on this map, you would be banned from getting a four-year degree in the United States, with a student visa limited to two years maximum.

The thread has all the countries.
Rather than have people dig through the threads to get to the original rationale, here's the relevant provision I built this map off of.

The vast majority of these countries would be banned from 4-year-degrees based on this overstay provision.

It's collective punishment.
Here's a thread I did on some of the other changes made by the rule, which was published this morning.

People who want to oppose the rule will be able to provide comments in opposition to the rule, starting tomorrow and lasting through 10/25/2020.

Here's the best example I can give for why collective punishment based on visa overstay rates is arbitrary and cruel.

In 2019, six students from Tuvalu were supposed to leave the US. One didn't.

As a result, the visa overstay rate was 17%—meaning all Tuvalans would be punished.
Also, whoops, just realizing I forgot to add Chad to the map. Chad would also be subject to the ban, because they had a student visa/exchange visitor overstay rate over 10% in FY2019.

That completes the band across the middle of Africa.
One final thing to add to this thread; that things are not totally lost if the rule goes into effect.

Students in those situation would be able to ask DHS for an extension of their visas past two years. So that means it's not a total ban.

But those extensions aren't guaranteed.
Putting this here: I maybe should not have used the word "ban." Some people would still be able to get a four-year degree, but would be required to apply to extend their visas repeatedly through their time in college—extensions which aren't guaranteed.
Starting tomorrow morning, people will be able to leave a comment in opposition to this rule at this link. federalregister.gov/documents/2020…
DHS says it's fixing a major problem. But DHS data says just 32,023 people are suspected of overstaying a student/exchange visa in 2019.

And because the rule is based on PERCENT, the countries with the highest NUMBER of overstays (China, India, Brazil, Canada) aren't affected.
Here's why a % threshold is so stupid:

China: 11,030 student/exchange overstays (unaffected by rule)
India: 5,304 (unaffected)
Brazil: 3,177 (unaffected)
Saudi Arabia: 2,983 (unaffected)
South Korea: 2,492 (unaffected)
Japan: 1,418 (unaffected)
...
Tuvalu: 1 (restricted)

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

Sep 8
🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers. Image
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Justice Sotomayor is utterly scathing: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent." Image
Sotomayor: "The [Gov't], and now the concurrence, has all but declared that all Latinos, US citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction." Image
Read 7 tweets
Sep 5
🚨NEW: Reversing *generations* of practice, the Board of Immigration Appeals gives ICE exactly what it demanded, ruling that any undocumented immigrant who entered illegally is categorically ineligible to ask a judge for bond — expanding mandatory detention by millions of people. Image
The new decision comes after the Trump admin announced in July that it would take the legal position that a 1996 law barred release on bond anyone who crossed illegally — despite no admin having EVER made that claim before. Now the BIA greenlights that completely novel argument.
The Board of Immigration Appeals has upheld grants of bond to people in this situation THOUSANDS of times in the past. NO ONE previously put forward the argument that they greenlit today — one that they claim is just a straightforward application of the law, not even ambiguous.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 3
🚨 The Trump admin is moving to de-legalize more than a quarter of a million Venezuelans who have been here for at LEAST four years.

The vast majority entered before Biden took office (often on tourist visas) and were previously granted deportation protections by Trump himself.
Trump is now moving to strip protections and deport the same people that he himself granted deportation protections to in his last week in office in 2021.

Trump’s order said protecting noncriminal Venezuelans from being sent back to Maduro was a matter of U.S. national interest. Image
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Trump's DED order for Venezuela applied to anyone here before January 20, 2021. Only weeks later, Secretary Mayorkas granted Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans here before March 9, 2021. So effectively speaking, this is the same group of people that Trump protected.
Read 10 tweets
Sep 3
🚨NEW: Declarations filed in the lawsuit against the rushed attempt to deport 600 Guatemalan children reveals the chaotic way the Trump admin carried out the operation.

Children were taken out of bed after midnight to be rushed onto planes. One girl "was so scared she vomited." Image
Other declarations directly refute the Trump admin's claims that the children's parents requested their return to Guatemala.

One dad in Guatemala says he got "a strange call" two weeks ago saying that his daughter was about to be deported — despite never having asked for that. Image
One 17-year-old describes what happened to him on Sunday night. He says he was woken up at 2:00 in the morning and told to get his things. He was scared, so he prayed to God and hoped he'd be protected.

Throughout the fateful morning, no one told him what was happening. Image
Read 8 tweets
Sep 2
NEW: The Trump admin plans to double the number of immigration judges, ordering hundreds of military lawyers to serve as immigration judges, despite flimsy legal authority to do so.

Notably, immigration law is infamously complex, and judges normally require months of training.
Many former JAGs serve as immigration judges today, having gone through a competitive hiring process. JAGs are often good lawyers, so I am not of the belief that they will all become rubber stampers. But the command pressure to deny will undoubtedly be *enormous.*
Indeed; the Trump admin has actually fired dozens of judges already and moved to purge many of the Biden appointees.

While I don’t believe military judges will be ordered to deny, they will undoubtedly be pressured to do so. And their inexperience will cause serious issues.
Read 8 tweets
Aug 19
NEW: McCarthyism returns to immigration law, as @USCIS announces that it will begin screening applicants for immigration benefits for "Anti-America ideologies or activities." The term has no prior precedent in immigration law and its definition is entirely up to the Trump admin. Image
The full policy memo is here. The Trump administration says that it will use its discretion to deny immigration benefits to anyone it deems to have supported a group with "anti-American ideologies" or engaged in "ant-American activities." uscis.gov/sites/default/…
The new policy on "anti-Americanism" and discretionary benefits comes just days after the Trump admin tightened standards for naturalization, ordering a more searching analysis of whether applicants for citizenship have met the required "good moral character" standard. Image
Read 4 tweets

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