Harvard Will Comply With White House Demands for Employee Forms
Save
Harvard University said it would turn over employment forms for thousands of staff to comply with demands from the Department of Homeland Security.
The federal inquiry applies to all current employees and any individual who worked for the university in the past year, Harvard said late Tuesday in a message to its community. Federal regulations entitle the government to review paperwork known as Form I-9 documents, which include information on employment eligibility.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
4 hours ago
- CBS News
Judge delays termination of legal status for immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua
A federal judge in California temporarily blocked the Trump administration from ending the legal status and deportation protections for tens of thousands of immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. While it could be suspended by a higher court, the ruling is a reprieve for more than 60,000 immigrants who had been previously allowed by the U.S. government to live and work in the country legally for years and in some cases, since the late 1990s, under the Temporary Protected Status program. Immigrants from Nepal enrolled in the TPS program were set to lose their legal status next week, on Aug. 5. TPS holders from Honduras and Nicaragua, meanwhile, were slated to see their work permits and deportation protections under the program expire in early September. U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco ordered the planned TPS terminations for these countries to be postponed through at least Nov. 18, when she scheduled a hearing on the merits of a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's decision. Thompson said the delay could be extended beyond Nov. 18. Created by Congress in 1990, TPS allows the Department of Homeland Security to offer a temporary safe haven — in the form of deportation deferrals and work authorization — to immigrants from countries beset by armed conflict, an environmental disaster or other crises. Those enrolled in TPS are generally immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally or who arrived legally on temporary visas and then applied for the humanitarian program. The Trump administration has sought to severely curtail TPS programs, arguing that some of them are contrary to U.S. national interests and that they've been in place for too long, despite their temporary nature and improved conditions in the relevant countries. The administration, for example, has noted that the TPS programs for Honduras and Nicaragua were first created in 1999, after Hurricane Mitch caused catastrophic floods and killed thousands in Central America. The TPS program for Nepal was announced in 2015, after an earthquake hit the small Asian country. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said all three countries have recovered from those environmental disasters. But Thompson, the San Francisco-based federal judge, said the TPS holders who sued the Trump administration were likely to succeed in their arguments that Noem's decisions were "preordained" actions that did not fully consider lingering conditions in Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. Thompson, who was appointed by former President Biden, also found the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in arguing that Noem's decisions were "motivated by racial animus." Thompson cited statements by Noem that she said stereotyped the TPS program and associated immigrants with criminality. The judge also referenced a comment made by President Trump during the 2024 campaign in which he said migrants entering the U.S. illegally were "poisoning the blood of our country." "The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek. Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees," Thompson wrote in her order. Representatives for DHS did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Thursday's court order, including on the judge's suggestion that the TPS terminations were linked to racial animus. According to official government statistics, there are 72,000 Hondurans, 12,700 Nepalis and 4,000 Nicaraguans enrolled in the TPS policy. Some of them, however, have been able to gain green cards, or lawful permanent U.S. residency, including 21,000 of the Honduran TPS holders. An estimated 5,500 and 1,100 TPS holders from Nepal and Nicaragua, respectively, have also become permanent residents, according to government data. Since Mr. Trump took office, his administration has announced plans to terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, including Afghans, Cameroonians, Haitians and Venezuelans. Federal courts have blocked some of those terminations, but the Supreme Court allowed the administration to revoke the TPS protections of more than 300,000 Venezuelans.
Miami Herald
6 hours ago
- Miami Herald
At longtime South Beach club, new immigration rules force dancers off stage
On a recent Wednesday night, dancers in glittering sequined costumes spun across a bartop stage, gyrating to bachata hits under the neon rainbow lighting at Mango's Tropical Cafe. But one of the iconic South Beach club's beloved performers was missing from the lineup. A staple of dance performances at Mango's for the last two years, Eduardo was recently let go. Mango's owner David Wallack said Eduardo, a Cuban national who arrived in 2023 through a humanitarian parole program, is just one of many valuable employees the nightclub has lost because their work authorization was revoked. 'First we lost three, then it turned into four — suddenly I realized we've lost 10 people in the last two weeks,' Wallack said. 'That's a big percentage of staff for any small business. And a specialized person like a great dancer, an artist, that's extremely hard to replace.' Eduardo, who agreed to speak to the Herald using only his middle name because he fears being deported, recently became one of thousands of Cubans in South Florida who have lost the right to work because of the tightening of immigration policies under President Donald Trump. In March, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would terminate the humanitarian parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. A lower court briefly blocked that change, but a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on May 30 overturned that order, clearing the way for DHS to cancel work permits tied to parole en masse. At the time, DHS called the ruling 'a victory for the American people,' adding that ending the parole programs, 'as well as the paroles of those who exploited it, will be a necessary return to common-sense policies, a return to public safety, and a return to America First.' Within days, immigrants in South Florida began receiving notices that their status had been terminated. 'We started getting phone calls from employees in tears saying they got letters from the Department of Homeland Security that their work authorization was revoked,' Mango's human resources director Natalie Corporan said. Employers using the federal E‑Verify system — including Mango's — began receiving automated alerts in June that workers' employment authorization had lapsed. There was no grace period. For businesses like Mango's, the change meant instant staffing losses. 'It's heart-wrenching to have to do this,' Corporan said of the calls she's had to make to employees like Eduardo, letting them know they can't continue working at Mango's. 'It's totally unfair what's happening.' One of those alerts flagged Eduardo. In 2023, he had boarded a flight from Havana to Miami, entering the United States legally through the humanitarian parole program President Joe Biden had created to stem the flow of unauthorized migrants at the southern border. Under the program, citizens of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela could instead legally enter the United States for two years if they had a sponsor in the country, passed a background check and bought a plane ticket. Eager to continue the career he'd begun in Cuba as a professional dancer, Eduardo, then 26, soon landed a spot among Mango's roster of performers, a job where he instantly felt at home. 'I loved everything about Mango's,' Eduardo said. 'There were always new shows, different dances and great vibes — I made new friends, started new relationships and met colleagues, other dancers.' Over the years, Mango's has drawn tourists looking for a quintessential South Beach experience, becoming famous for its entertainment and, in particular, its Cuban performers like the local legend Miguel Cruz. Wallack said he's always wanted Mango's to be the 'Tropicana of the U.S.,' referring to the renowned Havana cabaret club. Eduardo imagined years of choreographing dances and performing at the classic South Beach club. But that dream fell apart in recent months. 'When Trump won the elections, I was worried about what might happen,' Eduardo said. 'I felt a bit of anxiety and fear, but I still hoped everything would be OK.' Eduardo applied for permanent residency in 2023 shortly after arriving and didn't expect any issues with staying or working in the U.S. His parents and siblings, whom he lives with in Miami, were already permanent residents, having immigrated years prior. Wallack said losing Eduardo was particularly painful. 'I loved watching him perform — such unique moves, so acrobatic — and I thought, 'What if I just let him keep working?'' But when Wallack spoke to Corporan about it, she told him the risk was too great. Corporan said her job has become consumed by running weekly employment status checks and scrambling to find replacements for performers, bartenders and servers. 'It's become the top of my list to focus on, ensuring we're in compliance,' Corporan said, adding there's also 'extensive time training and doing rehearsals — we can't just hire anyone to replace employees with special talents.' 'It's a death sentence to our industry,' she added. 'Other businesses are going to face these same struggles with shortages of employees. We're all going to be struggling to do what we can to survive this.' Mango's has recently lost roughly 10% of its staff because of work authorization issues, according to Wallack and Corporan. 'This is really happening right now in Miami Beach. There's a lot of hospitality businesses and many positions filled by immigrants,' Wallack said. 'It's choking us — people who did everything right and got the proper papers, now all of a sudden the government is letting their authorization expire, forcing them to drop out of the workforce,' Wallack added. City commissioners in Miami Beach recently approved an official statement condemning 'the growing use of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric directed at immigrants — rhetoric that threatens the safety, dignity and well-being of thousands of families who call Miami Beach home.' Wallack dialed into the meeting to voice his support for the resolution and share how his business was being affected by the ongoing immigration crackdown. 'These are excellent staff, wonderful contributors to the community who generate tax funds for the city who have lost their ability to work,' Wallack told the commission. 'That resolution was so human. It was empathy, compassion — I felt it was very important to acknowledge that,' he later told the Herald. Mango's has been around for 34 years, and Wallack said that many of his employees have become citizens while working at the nightclub. 'We have employees who've been here for 20 years, who've made their lives at Mango's and supported their families through it. We've given scholarships to some of their children. It's a shame what's happening now. These people are being ostracized,' Wallack said. 'Our staff leans heavily Latin American. They're people who've come here to find a better life — wonderful, hardworking, industrious, hopeful people that have families.' Many of those families may now be facing serious struggles because of the sudden loss of income and employment, he said. Eduardo still hopes to be reauthorized to work and said he'd return to Mango's in a heartbeat. But for now, there's few options — there's no job Eduardo can legally work in the U.S. 'My Mango's salary was totally important to my family's finances,' he said. 'I feel awful because now I can't work or help my family, and I can't do what I love most in the world — which is to dance.'
Boston Globe
8 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Appellate judges question Trump's authority to impose tariffs without Congress
Brett Schumate, the attorney representing the Trump administration, acknowledged in the 99-minute hearing 'no president has ever read IEEPA this way' but contended it was nonetheless lawful. The 1977 law, signed by President Jimmy Carter, allows the president to seize assets and block transactions during a national emergency. It was first used during the Iran hostage crisis and has since been invoked for a range of global unrest, from the 9/11 attacks to the Syrian civil war. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump says the country's trade deficit is so serious that it likewise qualifies for the law's protection. Advertisement In sharp exchanges with Schumate, appellate judges questioned that contention, asking whether the law extended to tariffs at all and, if so, whether the levies matched the threat the administration identified. 'If the president says there's a problem with our military readiness,' Chief Circuit Judge Kimberly Moore posited, 'and he puts a 20 percent tax on coffee, that doesn't seem to necessarily deal with (it).' Schumate said Congress' passage of IEEPA gave the president 'broad and flexible' power to respond to an emergency, but that 'the president is not asking for unbounded authority.' Advertisement But an attorney for the plaintiffs, Neal Katyal, characterized Trump's maneuver as a 'breathtaking' power grab that amounted to saying 'the president can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants so long as he declares an emergency.' No ruling was issued from the bench. Regardless of what decision the judges' deliberations bring, the case is widely expected to reach the US Supreme Court. Trump weighed in on the case on his Truth Social platform, posting: 'To all of my great lawyers who have fought so hard to save our Country, good luck in America's big case today. If our Country was not able to protect itself by using TARIFFS AGAINST TARIFFS, WE WOULD BE 'DEAD,' WITH NO CHANCE OF SURVIVAL OR SUCCESS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!' In filings in the case, the Trump administration insists that 'a national emergency exists' necessitating its trade policy. A three-judge panel of the The issue now rests with the appeals judges. The challenge strikes at just one batch of import taxes from an administration that has unleashed a bevy of them and could be poised to unveil more on Friday. The case centers on Trump's so-called 'Liberation Day' tariffs of April 2 that imposed new levies on nearly every country. But it doesn't cover other tariffs, including those on Advertisement The case is one of at least seven lawsuits charging that Trump overstepped his authority through the use of tariffs on other nations. The plaintiffs include 12 US states and five businesses, including a wine importer, a company selling pipes and plumbing goods, and a maker of fishing gear. The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to impose taxes — including tariffs — but over decades lawmakers have ceded power over trade policy to the White House. Trump has made the most of the power vacuum, raising the average US tariff to more than 18 percent, the highest rate since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. The attorney general for one of the states suing Trump sounded confident after the hearing, arguing that the judges 'didn't buy' the Trump administration's arguments. 'You would definitely rather be in our shoes going forward,' Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said. Rayfield said that Trump's tariffs — which are paid by importers in the United States who often try to pass along the higher costs to their customers — amount to one of the largest tax increases in American history. 'This was done all by one human being sitting in the Oval Office,' he said.
