Judge to grant order protecting Dartmouth doctoral student from China from deportation
Advertisement
'I can only imagine how the hundreds of other students who are similarly situated, how they feel being placed in that situation with that prospect of detention,' said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire, one of the law firms representing Xiaotian in this case.
Get N.H. Morning Report
A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'These are real human beings,' Bissonnette added. 'They're part of our communities. ... We're dealing with students who are just trying to follow the rules, that have done nothing wrong yet are caught in this vast web.'
Bissonnette said he is aware of lawsuits similar to Xiaotian's having been filed recently on behalf of plaintiffs in California and Pennsylvania. This case in New Hampshire appears to be among the first in which a judge has agreed to grant some form of relief.
Advertisement
Judge Samantha D. Elliott, who sits in the US District Court for the District of New Hampshire, held an emergency hearing Wednesday morning during which an attorney from the US attorney's office presented minimal information regarding the details of Xiaotian's situation.
Assistant US Attorney Raphael Katz said he couldn't confirm whether federal officials had terminated Xiaotian's student status intentionally or inadvertently. He said he is working with legal counsel from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to gather details.
As a result of the change in Xiaotian's status, Dartmouth officials indicated they would have to bar him from continuing his research, according to his attorneys. He would be allowed to enroll in non-research courses, but he wouldn't be able to perform the work for which he was being compensated, nor would he be able to make progress on his PhD requirements. In the meantime, there is the risk that ICE agents might take him into custody for unclear reasons.
'He is sitting in fear in his residence,' said SangYeob Kim, an ACLU senior staff attorney.
In light of the information and arguments presented at this early stage in the litigation, Elliott said she would grant the short-term relief Xiaotian's attorney's requested, including blocking the federal defendants from terminating his F-1 student status in the Student and Exchange Visitor System database. That should signal to Dartmouth that Xiaotian can continue his research.
The order will remain in effect for no more than two weeks, so the parties are expected to return to court later this month with more substantive arguments.
Steven Porter can be reached at
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
37 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Could Elon Musk Be Deported By Donald Trump? What to Know
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Steve Bannon has called for Elon Musk to be deported from the United States, after the dramatic bust up between the tech billionaire and President Donald Trump. In his War Room podcast Thursday, Trump's former White House chief strategist from his first term said: "Elon Musk is illegal … Deport immediately." The validity of Bannon's claim about Musk's naturalized U.S. citizen status is now likely to face more scrutiny than ever. Newsweek contacted Musk for comment on Friday via emails sent to the press offices of Tesla and SpaceX, where he serves as CEO, outside of regular office hours. Why It Matters Over the past few months Musk had been one of Trump's closest political allies spending $292 million to support him and other Republicans during the 2024 presidential election, providing vocal support on his social media platform X and heading the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which he left at the end of May. However, in the past week this relationship unraveled and Musk has now suggested Trump should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, while the president suggested Musk's companies could lose government contracts potentially imperiling SpaceX's relationship with NASA. What To Know Speaking to the New York Times on Thursday, prominent conservative commentator Bannon said: "They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately." Bannon later doubled down on this argument during an appearance on his War Room podcast when he said: "Elon Musk is illegal, and he's got to go. He's illegal? Deport immediately." "You're going to ship these other people home. Let's start with the South Africans, OK?" In October, 2024, the Washington Post published an article claiming that Musk had previously "worked illegally in the United States" by setting up a company while on a student visa in 1995, despite never enrolling in Stanford University as promised. Citing "former business associates, court records and company documents" the publication said Musk used a J-1 student visa to enter the U.S. but instead worked on a startup that became Zip2 without the requisite work visa. According to the Post, in a 2005 email used in a defamation lawsuit, Musk admitted that he applied to Stanford because he otherwise had "no legal right to stay in the country." President Donald Trump speaking at a roundtable in the State Dining Room at the White House on June 05, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (left) and Elon Musk addressing reporters in the Oval Office of the... President Donald Trump speaking at a roundtable in the State Dining Room at the White House on June 05, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (left) and Elon Musk addressing reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (right). More Anna Moneymaker/Kevin Dietsch/GETTY The case was raised at a campaign event by then President Joe Biden who said: "That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be [an] illegal worker here when he was here. "I'm serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn't in school. He was violating the law. He's talking about all these illegals coming our way?" In a post on X shortly after the Post's story was published Musk denied the allegation against him, saying: "I was in fact allowed to work in the U.S." Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, Musk moved to Canada in 1989 and later to the United States in 1992 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. He became a U.S. citizen in 2002 through the naturalization process after several years of living and working in the country. U.S. law states that citizenship gained through naturalization can be revoked if it was "procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation." Speaking to Wired about Musk, Professor Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law expert at Cornell Law School, said that if the claims of illegal working are true "on purely legal grounds, this would justify revoking citizenship, because if he had told the truth, he would not have been eligible for an H1-B, a green card, or naturalization." Amanda Frost, a legal expert at the University of Virginia, said: "If a noncitizen violated the terms of a nonimmigrant visa, and then adjusted to immigrant (green card) status without admitting the violation, and then naturalized without admitting the violation, that person could be denaturalized on the ground that their naturalization was 'illegally procured." In a string of attacks on Friday, Musk called for Trump to be impeached, described what the president called his "Big Beautiful [spending] Bill" as "The Big Ugly Bill" and said Trump's tariffs policy would cause a recession in the second half of 2025. Trump fired back on his Truth Social website claiming Musk "just went CRAZY" adding: "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" As the row intensified Musk posted: "Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public." What People Are Saying In a post on X, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk said: "Let me get this straight: Democrats tried to put Trump in prison for 700 years, take his business empire from him, impeach him twice, take him off the ballot, and censor him on all social media—all the while they were sitting on info that Trump was on the Epstein list? This is total and complete nonsense." Reacting to the Trump-Musk bust up House Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said: "Oh man the girls are fighting aren't they?" On X, Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk's children, posted: "hey @realDonaldTrump lmk [let me know] if u need any breakup advice." What's Next It remains to be seen whether the Trump-Musk feud will continue and if so to what extent it will influence government policy. Trump has not given any indication he think's Musk's American citizenship should be investigated and according to Politico the two men are due to speak on Friday.
San Francisco Chronicle
5 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Judge puts temporary hold on Trump's latest ban on Harvard's foreign students
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge late Thursday temporarily blocked a proclamation by President Donald Trump that banned foreign students from entering the U.S. to attend Harvard University. Trump's proclamation, issued Wednesday, marked the latest attempt by his administration to cut off the nation's oldest and wealthiest college from a quarter of its student body, which accounts for much of Harvard's research and scholarship. Harvard filed a legal challenge the next day, asking for a judge to block Trump's order and calling it illegal retaliation for Harvard's rejection of White House demands. Harvard said the president was attempting an end-run around a previous court order. A few hours later, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs in Boston issued a temporary restraining order against Trump's Wednesday proclamation. Harvard, she said, had demonstrated it would sustain 'immediate and irreparable injury' before she would have an opportunity to hear from the parties in the lawsuit. Burroughs also extended the temporary hold she placed on the administration's previous attempt to end Harvard's enrollment of international students. Last month, the Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard's certification to host foreign students and issue paperwork to them for their visas, only to have Burroughs block the action temporarily. Trump's order this week invoked a different legal authority. If Trump's measure survives this court challenge, it would block thousands of students who are scheduled to come to Harvard's campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the summer and fall terms. 'Harvard's more than 7,000 F-1 and J-1 visa holders — and their dependents — have become pawns in the government's escalating campaign of retaliation,' Harvard wrote Thursday. While the court case proceeds, Harvard is making contingency plans so students and visiting scholars can continue their work at the university, President Alan Garber said in a message to the campus and alumni. 'Each of us is part of a truly global university community,' Garber said Thursday. 'We know that the benefits of bringing talented people together from around the world are unique and irreplaceable.' ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Judge temporarily blocks Trump admin's entry ban for international Harvard students
A federal judge late Thursday blocked the Trump administration's decision to ban foreign students from attending Harvard University. The decision from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs came hours after the Ivy League filed an amended complaint in court, arguing that the administration's move was unconstitutional. Over 7,000 students at Harvard hold F-1 or J-1 visas. Without those certifications, they can't study, teach, or conduct research in the U.S. The ban also affects their families and dependents. According to the university's lawsuit, the proclamation "lacks any lawful basis" and does not apply to any broad group of immigrants. "Nonimmigrants may enter the country unabated, as long as they do not attend Harvard," the complaint Is Down But Not Out In Court Battle Over Harvard's Foreign Student Visas Harvard argues the measure does not target a "class of aliens," but instead singles out Harvard-bound students, calling it a "government vendetta" rather than a national security April, a federal task force led by the Trump administration sent the university a list of demands, including ideological screening of students and faculty, "viewpoint diversity" quotas in hiring and admissions, and punishment of student activist groups. The administration also demanded Harvard report foreign funding sources and allow government oversight of internal policies. Read On The Fox News App When Harvard refused, the government froze $2.2 billion in research funding. Trump later posted on Truth Social that Harvard should lose its tax-exempt status if it continued to "push radical ideology." In another post, he accused the school of hiring "woke, Radical Left, idiots" and claimed it was no longer a great university. Trump Accuses Harvard Of Being 'Very Slow' To Turn Over Foreign Student Info The Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard's SEVP (Student and Exchange Visitor Program) certification a few days later, which allows the school to sponsor international students, but a federal judge blocked that now says that the administration is using Trump's proclamation to do what the courts have already stopped. The government claims Harvard failed to provide complete information on its international student population, but the university says it has submitted all records required by law and that the revocation is a pretext. "There is no lawful justification for the government's unprecedented actions," the university said in Thursday's filing. The amended complaint also reveals that Harvard is being represented by Robert Hur, the former special counsel who interviewed former President Joe Biden. International students now face uncertainty as the legal battle wages on. Jing, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student interning in Asia, told The Associated Press: "It is tiring; we all feel numb now." Another student, Yonas Nuguse from Ethiopia, who was accepted after surviving war and a school shutdown, also told The AP, "I hope the situation is temporary and I can enroll on time."Fox News' Louis Casiano and David Spunt contributed to this article source: Judge temporarily blocks Trump admin's entry ban for international Harvard students
