HARVARD UNIVERSITY and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit attempting to block the Trump administration’s new policy ordering international students to leave the country if their college or university is offering online-only classes in the fall. Most fall courses at Harvard and MIT are being held remotely this fall out […]
Immigration
Posted inEducation, State House News Service
Mass. education officials slam ICE reversal
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE A NEW FEDERAL IMMIGRATION policy ordering international students to leave the country if their colleges or universities offer online-only classes this fall has prompted an outcry from educators and campus officials in Massachusetts, who slammed the move as “cruel” and likely to cause massive economic damage. Many higher education institutions, including […]
Posted inUncategorized
US immigration agency to furlough workers
ACROSS THE NATION, more than two-thirds of the 20,000 employees of a federal immigration services agency have been notified that they are likely to be furloughed for a minimum of 30 consecutive days and as long as three months starting August 3. US Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has offices in Boston and Lawrence, is […]
Posted inEconomy
New bill would extend eviction moratorium by a year
REVERE RESIDENT Dolores De Blass has lived in the same apartment for 11 years and never had a problem making the $2,000-a-month rent, but then COVID-19 came along. De Blass, her husband, her sister, son, and two daughters all tested positive in April. De Blass was in intensive care twice, and her sister was in a medically […]
Posted inUncategorized
Trump suspends visa program bringing workers to US
PRESIDENT TRUMP on Monday extended existing restrictions on the issuance of new green cards and temporarily suspended new work visas that will bar hundreds of thousands of immigrants from coming to the United States to work through the end of December. The Trump administration said that the move will keep as many as 525,000 foreign […]
Posted inUncategorized
Supreme Court blocks Trump’s DACA shutdown
IN A MAJOR SETBACK for President Trump, the US Supreme Court blocked the administration’s attempt to end a federal program that protects 700,000 immigrants nationwide and more than 5,600 in Massachusetts from being deported. The 5-4 ruling allows the immigrants, who were brought to the US as children and are known as DREAMers, to maintain […]
Posted inUncategorized
Report: Undocumented immigrants at risk of losing work, pay
NEARLY HALF OF the undocumented immigrants employed in the state, an estimated 55,000 workers, were at risk of losing their job or losing pay because their workplace had to close during the COVID-19 shutdowns, according to a report issued Monday. The analysis by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a liberal-leaning policy think tank, said workers without legal status in […]
Posted inUncategorized
Federal immigration office reopens
THE BOSTON OFFICE of the federal immigration agency that deals with the country’s naturalization process reopened today, 11 weeks after shutting down most in-person services due to the coronavirus pandemic. A spokesperson said that USCIS is following the Trump administration’s three-phase guidelines for reopening the country as well as Department of Homeland Security and health officials’ policies and social distancing safety […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Legal skirmishing continues at Bristol County Jail
EVEN AS COVID-19 deaths and infections are declining across Massachusetts, legal skirmishing is continuing at the Bristol County Jail over the safety of federal immigration detainees. Legal advocates for some of the detainees say their clients have been held too long in single cells, segregated from other detainees, in violation of the Criminal Justice Reform […]
Posted inUncategorized
Unemployment portal now in multiple languages
ONE DAY AFTER making the state’s unemployment insurance portal available in Portuguese, the state added versions in Chinese, Vietnamese, and Haitian Kreyol. The new versions were added this week with little fanfare and weeks after the Baker administration indicated they would be forthcoming. The Spanish language version was announced in April by the governor himself […]