PSJD Public Interest News Digest – September 25, 2020

Sam Halpert, NALP Director of Public Service Initiatives

Photo: Harris and Ewing Collection, Library of Congress

Interested public. Here is some news.

Take care of one another,

Sam

Breonna Taylor

Crimes Against Humanity

Rule of Law & Voting Rights

Non-Profit & Gov’t Management & Hiring

  • Also in Washington DC, “[t]he Department of Homeland Security [] released a proposed rule change putting new limits on visas for international students, exchange visitors (au pairs, visiting scholars, and the like), and foreign journalists. The rules for students especially have drawn immediate criticism because, as is so often the case with the Trump administration’s immigration policy, they are needlessly onerous and cruel…Those familiar with President Trump’s past country-specific immigration rules won’t be surprised to learn the stricter, two-year version applies overwhelmingly to nations in Africa and the Middle East, including many Muslim-majority countries. It does this by targeting the four nations on the state sponsors of terrorism list and, crucially, ‘citizens of countries with a student and exchange visitor total overstay rate of greater than 10 percent.’ But overstay rate often doesn’t correlate with overstay volume (India, for example, has more than 20 times as many overstays as Iraq, but a much lower percentage rate). Thus using the overstay rate limits student visas for what Trump would reportedly dub “shithole countries” via an ostensibly neutral formula while doing relatively little to cut down on total visa overstays.

    Student Loans & Student Debt