Letters: US constitution should be used to halt Donald Trump's ban on foreign students

Irish Independent

2 days ago

However, the Ivy League university quickly filed a complaint in a federal court in Boston, saying the government's action violated the First Amendment and would have an immediate and devastating effect for Harvard and its valued core of international students. US district judge Allison Burroughs quickly issued a temporary restraining order, freezing the Department of Homeland Security's directive for two weeks.
The judge's order prevents Trump from revoking Harvard's certification in the student and exchange visitor programme, which allows the university to enrol international students with visas to study in the US.
Harvard enrolled almost 6,800 foreign students in its current school year at its campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Most are graduate students, who come from more than 100 countries, including Ireland.
It's essential that Trump's attempt to overturn the well-established and lawful practice of American universities welcoming international students is blocked by the federal court.
Scholarship and learning are without borders. Ireland and the US have facilitated each other's students for undergraduate, postgraduate, research and cultural exchange for many decades.
Indeed, Ireland has a proud record of welcoming foreign students to study in our excellent third-level education system. The same can currently be said about the US.
The American constitution must now stand robustly against a president who is determined to damage that record.
Billy Ryle, Tralee, Co Kerry
The US system is working – checks and balances are stopping president's overreach
The crisis of US president Donald Trump's assault on the rule of law is beyond the pale. I say that because nothing like this has ever happened in American history.
I believe Trump and his MAGA ­devotees may need a quick civics lesson about the law.
They need to be reminded that courts can overturn unconstitutional laws. I would like to bring to their attention that an executive order isn't law and a president can't make laws without Congress.
When judges decide to block Trump, one finds that this is literally how checks and balances work.
John O'Brien, Clonmel, Co Tipperary
Conflict in Palestine has deep roots, but Benjamin Netanyahu has seized his opportunity
Ciaran Masterson asks 'have we forgotten that Hamas started this?' (Sunday Independent, Letters, June 1).
I would like to point out the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people has been ongoing since 1948.
I first witnessed the treatment of Palestinian people by Israeli forces of occupation in 1974 when I took up an appointment with United Nations.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, was not 'the beginning' of the problem – just the excuse Benjamin Netanyahu needed to pursue his policies of ethnic cleansing.
Michael Moriarty, Rochestown, Co Cork
We've had two decades of promises on housing, but nobody telling the truth
Yet another week of Irish politics and the non-stop saga on provision of housing fills the media.
For nigh on two decades, politicians have spouted innumerable promises on housing provision.
Were these promises in good faith or merely empty to get a vote?
Today, the political parties who have been in power alternatively since 1922 would have the citizenry believe a special 'housing tsar' is the only way to remedy the situation.
Definitely not a job for the boys.
I am aware of much of the history of the provision of housing throughout the nation from the post Civil War – a disastrous financial era; through the precarious financial years 1939 to 1970.
Is there one honest person in politics or the civil service to inform the electorate of Ireland exactly who, or what, the problem is today, when the nation is wealthy and better educated?
Declan Foley, Melbourne, Australia
Our military capability is weakening as Vladimir Putin's hawkish eyes scan Europe
The fact that the Naval Service has had to tie up some of its vessels because of staff shortages is old news.
Then during the past week this paper reported that Air Corps flight operations are to move to part-time hours at its headquarters in Baldonnel and may soon have to cease entirely. ​
This military impairment is oceans away from the Naval Service doubling its fleet to 12 vessels, enabling it to possess 'a defensive conventional maritime war-fighting capability' and the Air Corps becoming the Irish Air Force and acquiring a squadron of aircraft 'capable of air combat and interception of airborne threats', as set out in the Commission on the Defence Forces Report (2022).
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin probes our skies and waters which are laden with critical undersea communications infrastructure, undoubtedly observing us as a rudderless, wingless and feckless territory on the edge of a continent he despises.
Michael Gannon, St Thomas Square, Kilkenny city
I'll raise a glass to Darragh McManus's article on replica jersey obsession
Darragh McManus's fine piece on the replica jersey obsession made me pause and take stock of my own wardrobe ('Our children's choice of replica shirts sums up the generation gap to a tee', Irish Independent, May 31).
I do have a few Armagh polo shirts (and why wouldn't I, after the year Armagh just had?), but at this very moment I find myself writing to you while wearing a KEO beer T-shirt I picked up in Cyprus.
A quick count suggests I own more beer-branded shirts than sports ones. Somewhere along the way, I clearly took a wrong turn – probably at the fridge.
Enda Cullen, Tullysaran, Co Armagh
My theory on Causeway coins takes one giant leap of the imagination
Perhaps the people who placed coins between the rocks at the Giant's Causeway had been advised to put their money 'into bricks and mortar'?
Tom Gilsenan, Beaumont, Dublin 9