Saying Florida is trying to protect against “nefarious foreign-government influence,” higher-education leaders this week asked a federal appeals court to overturn a ruling that blocked part of a 2023 law restricting ties between state universities and colleges and China.
Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office filed a 60-page brief at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that a federal district judge improperly issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by two Florida International University doctoral students and a University of Florida professor.
The March 28 injunction ruling focused on the students, who are from China and say the law has prevented them from working as graduate teaching assistants, positions that carry stipends and other benefits. The students, Zhipeng Yin and Zhen Guo, received what are known as F-1 visas from the federal government to study in the U.S.
U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez approved recommendations from U.S. Magistrate Judge Eduardo Sanchez, who said federal law governs such immigration and national-security issues.
But the brief field Monday disputed that the state law (SB 846) was “preempted” by federal laws. Uthmeier’s office is representing the defendants, members of the state university system’s Board of Governors, system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr.
“In essence, the (district) court held that a state university must hire an alien student, no matter the security risks, because years earlier the federal government gave that student an F-1 visa and ran a cursory background check,” the brief said.
Also, the state’s lawyers contended that “Congress simply intended to provide a floor with its security review, not a ceiling” as part of the F-1 visa process.
“Nothing in the F-1 visa statutes or regulations indicate that Congress saw State Department desk agents as the first, last, and only line of defense against threats to the nation or to informational security,” the state’s lawyers wrote.
But in his recommendations, Sanchez, the magistrate judge, wrote that the state law “requires the Board of Governors to make a national security determination about foreign students seeking employment at state colleges and universities, just as the federal government does when determining eligibility for and issuing visas to those students.”
”For example, although a student visa holder will have been found by the federal government to meet all of the eligibility requirements for the issued student visa, including satisfaction of national security concerns, SB 846 requires the state of Florida to conduct an independent assessment of national security concerns that may result in a conflicting national security determination,” Sanchez wrote. “Indeed, SB 846’s application to students who have been granted student visas serves no purpose other than to revisit, question and potentially seek to override the federal immigration determination that the pertinent student does not pose a national security concern.”
The state law was part of a package of changes that the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved largely targeting China. Along with China, it sought to prevent involvement in the higher-education system by Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.
The law prevents universities and colleges from employing people who are “domiciled” in China and the other countries, unless the people go through a process to get approval from the Board of Governors or the State Board of Education, which oversees colleges.
The magistrate’s recommendations, filed Feb. 10, said Yin is pursuing doctoral studies in computer and information sciences, while Guo is studying materials engineering. In 2023, they were initially offered graduate teaching positions, which included annual stipends of $27,510 and tuition waivers, but were later told that the teaching positions were deferred because of the state law.
They remained students at FIU but had to pay full tuition, Sanchez wrote.
The state quickly appealed the injunction ruling and raised a series of issues in Monday’s brief. For example, the brief disputed that the students had legal standing to sue the Board of Governors because FIU — not the statewide board — denied their employment.
More broadly, the brief said the state “enacted SB 846 to protect its citizens from nefarious foreign-government influence by barring hostile foreign governments and their potential agents from stealing sensitive information at Florida’s public universities.”
The state also has asked the Atlanta-based appeals court for a stay of the injunction while the underlying appeal plays out. The court had not ruled on that request as of Wednesday morning.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
Henry longefellow says
Haha didn’t care when Russia helped ol pedo chief get elected. Seems more about propagating hate and discrimination and disinformation cause it’s the GoP . No low is low enough for those roaches! Here’s a free hurried million dollar plane the constitution says cannot be allowed but who cares about that ol thing haha! murikkkan losers! Life is more unaffordable than ever and it’s 1000% republican fault they are economic terrorist for the corporations they represent.
Deborah Coffey says
Sure, that’s what Republicans should be teaching everyone…how to hate everyone that isn’t White and Christian. They are destroying our country with bigotry, racism, cruelty, and lawlessness.
Double taxpayer says
You people that comment here are so uninformed . @ Henry…prices are already coming back down from the bidenflation.
@ deborah…you describe Democrats to a T…you just slap Republican in their place. People can’t be this ignorant ,can they? These comments must be paid by democratic oligarchs fighting to overrun our country with illegal immigrants like they have in the UK. The world is starting to take a page out of our new handbook. They are fed up with this crazy agenda also. There are tons of videos online from years past with Democrats saying the same thing Donald Trump is actually doing .
Pogo says
@Or
… bigotry, racism, cruelty, and lawlessness destroyed the Republican Party; and having become a real boy, girl, whatever, it has been destroying anything, and everything it can reach; money never sleeps.
Anyway, just in time, for the bigly ending being created by an absurdly ridiculous man, empowered by the best and the brightest; all over the world, every day.
Susan says
Congress and the Supreme Court need to live up to their Oath to the US Constitution and put a stop to this madness. Write your Congressmen and Senators enough is enough.
Samuel L. Bronkowitz says
I love this so much, it’s absolutely hilarious. PhD programs in chemistry and physics all across the state (and country) are absolutely 100% screwed. By eliminating NSF funding across the board and then getting rid of foreign graduate students you’ve turned 50+ faculty powerhouse programs into ones with 0 programs, lmao. Foreign schools are about to get a serious boon, we are watching the fall of an empire in real time lol
Ray W, says
The irony in Double taxpayer’s comment is that he or she is the one who is truly uninformed about what he calls Bidenflation.
Trump is in part indirectly responsible for the inflation that has for the past two years been coming down, because he is the one who signed into law some $2.9 trillion in unfunded stimulus money at the time the American economy was cratering. I have read of one economist’s estimate that Trump threw in total some $6 trillion at the crisis, but most economists say the amount is $2.9 trillion.
Biden is in part indirectly responsible for the inflation that has for the past two years been coming down, because he is the one who signed into law some $3 trillion in unfunded stimulus money just after Trump threw so much money at the cratering American economy.
Fed Chair Powell is in part indirectly responsible for the inflation that has for the past two years been coming down, because the Fed expanded the supply of credit made available to banks by $3 trillion at a time when the Fed lowered the lending rate to banks to 0% percent. Thirty-year fixed-rate mortgages fell to as low as 2.7 percent, which drove millions of families to either buy homes or refinance their homes. The frenzy drove up home prices, adding to the inflation caused by injecting so much stimulus money into the economy.
There is a professional lying class at the top of one of our two political parties. One of the lies issued by that class is that the Biden administration is solely responsible for the inflation launched by the throwing of trillions and trillions of dollars at a recession directly caused by the pandemic. Yes, Biden is partly responsible. So, too, is Trump. So, too, is Powell. A number of economists argue that Powell acted too late when the Fed began to rapidly raise the lending rate. Had the Fed acted sooner, they say, inflation would not have hit the heights it hit.
The modus operandi of that professional lying class is to lie in hopes that the gullibly stupid among us will launder their lies. Welcome to the club of the gullible after taking the lie hook, line and sinker, Double taxpayer.