4A ❚ FRIDAY, JULY 10, 2020 ❚ USA TODAY
Foreign students fret over effect of ruling
Henry Ren and Xurui Tan
Medill News Service
When University of Southern Cali-
fornia student Mage Zhang spent more
than $5,000 for a flight home to China in
late May, she packed all her belongings
and thought this could be a trip of no re-
turn.
The Trump administration’s new rule
on international students confirmed her
worries.
Issued by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement on Monday, the new reg-
ulation says international students at-
tending colleges in the U.S. cannot stay
in the country if their classes are held
fully online and not in a classroom.
In a July 1 letter to students, USC an-
nounced undergraduates will be “pri-
marily or exclusively” taking classes on-
line in the fall term. Zhang said she
didn’t expect to return to campus before
November.
“The risks and expenses are too high
for a returning trip to the U.S., and I’d
rather take online classes at home,” said
Zhang, who will be a senior this year.
Thousands of international students
like Zhang must make difficult decisions
under ICE’s new rule. If they opt for on-
line courses only, they can be forced out
or barred from entering the U.S. To re-
main in the country, they will have to
take in-person classes despite concerns
about the coronavirus.
“This administration clearly is not
one that’s welcoming to immigrants,
and this extended very clearly to inter-
national students as well,” said Sarah
Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration
Policy Institute. “It also places a lot of
pressure on international students to
try to attend in-person classes, which
Taxes
Continued from Page 1A
absolute immunity from subpoenas,
saying he should have been afforded
more “deference.” Trump later said he
was “satisfied” with one of the deci-
sions, which temporarily blocks Con-
gress from seeking the tax records, and
“not satisfied” with a separate ruling re-
quiring the material to be turned over to
prosecutors in New York. He dismissed
the underlying effort to get at the rec-
ords as “purely political.”
While both the White House and
Democratic leaders seized on the cases
as a win, neither side completely got
what they wanted – limiting their ability
to use the rulings as a political weapon.
Democrats had sought a wholesale re-
pudiation of Trump’s effort to block
congressional subpoenas; Trump want-
ed the court to curb subpoenas in a po-
tentially embarrassing hush-money in-
vestigation.
In the end, the court handed down a
pair of nuanced decisions that didn’t
break along traditional ideological lines
and left many questions in legal limbo.
Democrats noted that one of the
highly anticipated decisions, requiring
Trump to comply with subpoenas in
New York, eviscerated an argument by
Trump’s lawyers that a president is im-
mune to such requests. And that could
leave an opening for Joe Biden, the pre-
sumptive Democratic nominee, or an
outside Democratic group to emphasize
Oklahoma
Continued from Page 1A
gress, using imprecise language, failed
to disestablish the 1866 boundaries of
the reservation. If so, virtually half of
Oklahoma – home to 1.8 million resi-
dents and including Tulsa, where Presi-
dent Donald Trump recently held a con-
troversial campaign rally amid a global
pandemic – would remain subject to
federal criminal laws.
“We do not pretend to foretell the fu-
ture, and we proceed well aware of the
potential for cost and conflict around ju-
risdictional boundaries, especially ones
that have gone unappreciated for so
long,” Gorsuch wrote. “But it is unclear
why pessimism should rule the day.
With the passage of time, Oklahoma
and its Tribes have proven they can
work successfully together as partners.
“The federal government promised
the (Muscogee Creek Nation) a reserva-
tion in perpetuity,” Gorsuch wrote, add-
ing that while Congress has “dimin-
ished” the sanctuary over time, law-
makers had “never withdrawn the
promised reservation.”
University of South Carolina student
Shreyas Saboo now plans a gap
semester after ICE issued the new rule.
PHOTO PROVIDED
many might be uncomfortable with.”
The policy has pushed some schools
and universities to reconsider fall aca-
demic plans, while many vowed to pro-
tect their international students. The
University of Texas at El Paso said Tues-
day that it will work with each of its
more than 1,400 international students
to meet federal requirements for an F-1
student visa.
Harvard University and Massachu-
setts Institute of Technology sued the
Trump administration Wednesday over
the policy, requesting a temporary re-
straining order to pause its implemen-
tation. Harvard will offer classes only
online this fall, while MIT plans to invite
some students to campus for a mix of in-
person and online classes, while keep-
ing the rest of its students online. Sever-
al universities had joined the suit by late
Wednesday.
“The order came down without no-
tice — its cruelty surpassed only by its
recklessness,” Harvard President Larry
Bacow wrote in a letter announcing the
lawsuit. “We believe that the ICE order
is bad public policy and we believe that
it is illegal.”
a lack of transparency in coming weeks.
“The ‘no one is above the law line’
from the Supreme Court is going to
make a nice ad for Biden,” said Jim Man-
ley, a Democratic strategist. “But the sad
reality from this decision is that absent
a stunning turn of events, the American
public is not going to be able to see his
tax returns before the election, which is
outrageous.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-
Calif., described the cases as “not good
news” for Trump. Senate Democratic
leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called
them a “devastating blow.” Congres-
sional Republicans joined Trump in dis-
missing the decisions. Rep. Jim Jordan,
R-Ohio, told Fox News the court “punt-
ed” on what he described as a case moti-
vated by politics.
Roberts, who secured votes from
Trump’s own nominees to the court –
Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh –
found the president had no broad power
to brush aside subpoenas from investi-
gators just because of his position in the
White House. The Manhattan district
attorney is seeking the information as
part of an investigation into alleged
hush-money payments made during
the 2016 election to protect Trump.
Democrats said the tax cases, which
come as polls show Trump trailing Bi-
den in battleground states such as
Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylva-
nia, would reprise debates about a lack
of transparency. But they also said
Trump’s taxes would likely be less po-
tent for voters than the administration’s
response to the COVID-19 pandemic and
“As a result, many of the arguments
before us today follow a sadly familiar
pattern. Yes, promises were made, but
the price of keeping them has become
too great, so now we should just cast a
blind eye. We reject that thinking.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, in a dis-
senting opinion, said that Congress
made no attempt to conceal its intention
to “disestablish” reservation lands.
“The court suggests that Congress
sought to ‘tiptoe to the edge of disestab-
lishment,’ ” Roberts wrote. “Quite the
opposite. Through an open and concert-
ed effort, Congress did what it set out to
do: transform a reservation into a state.”
The state’s solicitor general, Mithun
Mansinghani, warned in May that a rul-
ing for Native Americans could require
the release of more than 1,700 inmates.
That didn’t sit well with several justices
who feared a chaotic overhaul of long-
decided criminal cases.
“What makes this case hard is that
there have been hundreds, hundreds of
prosecutions, some very heinous of-
fenses of the state law. On your view,
they would all become undone,” Asso-
ciate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told
Gershengorn.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito
“I think the Harvard statement was
definitely the right thing to do,” said
Shriank Kanaparti, an Indian student
who will be a senior at Harvard. “All my
friends across different universities are
also in support of this because it collec-
tively helps international students as a
whole.”
Meanwhile, some faculty are plan-
ning in-person classes in the fall to ac-
commodate international students.
William Hurst, an associate professor of
political science at Northwestern Uni-
versity, said on Twitter that he may offer
an independent study course to any in-
ternational graduate student in his de-
partment. The college plans to hold a
significant portion of classes remotely
but has said it will offer in-person “cur-
ricular and co-curricular experiences.
“Without somehow opening more in-
person classes, I don’t see an easy way
for the university to help students avoid
running afoul of this new rule,” Hurst
later said in an email. “In the meantime,
this is just a simple stop-gap that I hope
might make a small difference.”
Hurst plans to hold in-person meet-
ings outdoors because his office is too
small for social distancing. Most of the
graduate students he works with are in-
ternational students, he said, while a
few have inquired about the course.
Yet for some students in their home
countries, ICE’s policy gives them a rea-
son to stay put, at least for fall.
Shreyas Saboo, a senior at the Uni-
versity of South Carolina and currently
at home in India, planned to fly back to
the U.S. in early August until his cousin
forwarded him ICE’s announcement.
The University of South Carolina an-
nounced a fall semester with some
classes in-person and some online. Still,
the subsequent economic fallout from
shutting down schools and businesses.
“Any day spent talking about Trump
fighting to hide his taxes from the public
is not a good one for him,” said Josh
Schwerin of Priorities USA Action, a
group that supports Democrats. “That
said, our focus in ads will continue to be
Trump’s failed leadership on the coro-
navirus pandemic, the ongoing reces-
sion and health care.”
Biden, the former vice president, has
released his own tax returns, revealing
he has made more than $15 million since
leaving the Obama administration.
Trump broke with decades of tradition
in 2016 by declining to release his tax
records as a candidate, initially signal-
ing he would and then saying he
couldn’t because he was under audit.
In a preview of how the candidates
may frame the issue for voters, Biden
retweeted a post Thursday in which he
touted the disclosure of his own taxes
and admonished Trump to “release
yours or shut up.” Trump described the
decisions as political, arguing that
courts previously had given presidents
“broad deference” but “NOT ME!”
“This is all a political prosecution,”
Trump wrote.
In previous battles for presidential
documents or testimony, the Supreme
Court ruled unanimously against Presi-
dents Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill
Clinton in 1997, with their nominees to
the court in agreement. Those decisions
led to Nixon’s resignation and Clinton’s
impeachment, though he was not re-
moved from office.
asked, “Won’t (residents) be surprised
to learn that they are living on a reserva-
tion and that they are now subject to
laws imposed by a body that is not ac-
countable to them in any way?”
In last year’s case, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled the
state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute a
gruesome murder because it happened
within 3 million acres belonging to the
Muscogee (Creek) Nation. The ruling
threatened more than 19 million acres in
eastern Oklahoma once inhabited by
five Native American tribes.
Within hours of Thursday’s ruling,
the state and five Native American na-
tions released a statement promising
cooperation.
“The nations and the state are com-
mitted to implementing a framework of
shared jurisdiction that will preserve
sovereign interests and rights to self-
government while affirming jurisdic-
tional understandings, procedures,
laws, and regulations that support pub-
lic safety, our economy, and private
property rights,” they said. “We will
continue our work, confident that we
can accomplish more together than any
of us could alone.”
Many Oklahoma public officials, in-
NEWS
Saboo is worried that if he returns to the
U.S. for classes, he could be forced to
leave if COVID-19 cases spike and
courses move online again.
“Plus, there’s a chance that I could
get infected on the way,” Saboo said.
“There are so many things which are not
on our side.”
Instead, Saboo is planning a gap se-
mester. He wants to return to the U.S.
before his last semester and secure an
internship through the Optional Practi-
cal Training program, which allows in-
ternational students to work on student
visas.
But the policy might make some stu-
dents less likely to return to the U.S. or
stay long-term. That could hurt key U.S.
industries in need of top talent. At the
least, it could threaten foreign students’
future careers in the U.S.
Fiona Huang, a Chinese student pur-
suing a law degree at the University of
California, Berkeley, said she had
planned to land a job in the U.S. upon
graduation in 2021. If she has to leave
due to the ICE policy – Berkeley’s law
school is planning only online courses
this fall – she may not have the opportu-
nity to return. “The environment for im-
migrants is unfriendly,” Huang said. “If
we find no ways to return before gradua-
tion, years of studies for a job in the U.S.
will be wasted.”
Kanaparti said he is exploring oppor-
tunities in other countries. He reached
out to the Harvard Club of India to cu-
rate local job opportunities for students
willing to come back to India.
“The general consensus seems to be
that the top global talent pool might
move from being concentrated in the
U.S. to becoming more global and dis-
tributed,” Kanaparti said.
The subpoenas are part of a criminal
probe by Manhattan District Attorney
Cyrus Vance into payments Michael Co-
hen, Trump’s former lawyer, said were
made to adult film star Stormy Daniels
and former Playboy model Karen
McDougal.
Both women claimed they had affairs
with Trump, which he denied.
In a separate case, the court tempo-
rarily blocked congressional investiga-
tors from gaining access to many of the
same records. It sent the effort by House
Democrats to obtain Trump’s taxes and
other financial documents back to a
lower court for further review of the
separation of powers between the exec-
utive and legislative branches.
Several political analysts down-
played the political significance of the
rulings, saying the court had essentially
maintained the status quo from the 2016
election.
“Anyone who had a strong opinion on
Trump’s tax returns already knows ex-
actly how they’re voting,” predicted Re-
publican strategist Matt Gorman.
Dante Scala, a political scientist at
the University of New Hampshire,
agreed. “I’m past the point where I think
revelations about the president –
whether it’s a tell-all book or whether
it’s the tax returns – are going to move a
lot of voters,” he said. “There is always
this waiting for (an) ah-ha moment
where the curtain is going to be thrown
back. I don’t buy it, not in terms of public
opinion.”
Contributing: Michael Collins, Court-
ney Subramanian, Christal Hayes
cluding Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cole
and Democratic former Gov. Brad Hen-
ry, had urged the justices to rule in favor
of the Native American tribes whose
sovereignty they said has been good for
the state.
“In one area after another – taxation,
gaming, motor vehicle registration, law
enforcement, and water rights – the Na-
tions’ sovereignty within their reserva-
tions and the state’s recognition of that
sovereignty have provided the frame-
work for the negotiation of inter-gov-
ernmental agreements that benefit all
Oklahomans,” they said.
The Trump administration took the
state’s side, telling the justices that
Congress long ago broke up the Creek
Nation’s lands, abolished its courts and
set a timetable for the tribe’s dissolu-
tion.
Last year, 10 states including Maine,
Texas and Montana warned that the
boundaries of tribal lands have jurisdic-
tional consequences there as well. They
said a decision in the tribe’s favor
“would be confusing and costly at best,
and disastrous at worst,” affecting
health and energy policy, environmen-
tal regulation, economic development
and taxes.