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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's attack on in-state tuition for Dreamers is bad law — and worse policy
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Other surveys — by the Advertisement Among the targets of the administration's hostility, none elicits more sympathy from the public than the so‑called Dreamers — young people brought here unlawfully as children, who have grown up as Americans in everything but paperwork. (According to Gallup, Advertisement In lawsuits filed this spring against Texas, Minnesota, and Kentucky, the Justice Department maintains that offering in‑state tuition to students without legal immigration status — even if they were brought here as small children and essentially grew up American — violates federal law. In reality, it is the administration's assault that distorts federal law. It is also a brazen power grab that tramples states' rights, to say nothing of basic decency. Beginning in 2001, Democratic and Republican legislatures decided that if young people grow up in a state, are educated in its schools, and want to pursue higher education within its borders, it makes no sense to penalize them financially merely because of their immigration status. If there are good reasons to give a break on tuition to local students who want to go to a local college, what difference does it make whether they have a passport, a green card, or neither? Yet on April 28, President Trump Advertisement But that isn't true. Federal law does not say that undocumented immigrants must be excluded from any in-state tuition benefit. It Accordingly, the states that offer reduced tuition to undocumented immigrants condition the offer on criteria other than residency. States that offer in‑state tuition to undocumented students are acting not just humanely but rationally. Such policies reflect the common-sense principle that justifies giving a tuition break to any local student: It is in every state's interest to help its homegrown young people be as successful and well educated as possible. Lower tuition makes higher education more affordable, which in turn boosts the number of local families that can send their kids to college, which in turn expands the state's population of educated adults. A more educated population strengthens the state's economy, since college graduates are more likely to be employed and to earn higher incomes. For states like Massachusetts, which suffers from high outmigration, a particularly strong argument for the in-state tuition break is that graduates of public institutions are more likely to Advertisement None of these arguments has any logical connection to immigration or citizenship. They apply with equal force to those born abroad and to those born locally. And it is irrelevant whether those born abroad were brought to America by parents who had immigration visas or by parents who didn't. Dreamers aren't freeloaders. Like their families, they pay taxes — property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and even the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare benefits, for which they are ineligible. (In 2022, according to the latest estimate from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants Aside from the Trumpian hard core, most Americans sympathize with the plight of undocumented immigrants who grew up in this country and have known no other home. That explains why (as Gallup reports) 85 percent of them would like Congress to make it possible for them to acquire citizenship. It also explains why in-state tuition for Dreamers has bipartisan support: The states that have enacted such policies include Oklahoma, Kentucky, California, and New York. Advertisement The Trump administration's lawsuits deserve to be dismissed on their legal merits, but they also deserve to be reviled as one more example of MAGA malevolence, which is grounded in nothing except a desire to hurt immigrants — Few Americans have any desire to punish young people who have done nothing wrong. The cruelty at the heart of Trump's immigration policy may thrill his base, but it repels a far larger America unwilling to abandon its values. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Citizens of nowhere
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Some stateless people entered the United States and remain here legally, protected by asylum or another status. But like many undocumented immigrants, most live in the shadows, careful not to attract attention and unable to do anything that requires state identification. As such, many are unable to find regular work and can only get by on jobs that pay cash and don't ask too many questions. Others take the risky step of fighting for asylum, work authorization, and other protections. Advertisement Like other undocumented immigrants, some people who are stateless remain in the country illegally because they also have nowhere to go. Amadou was allowed to temporarily reenter the United States by the Biden administration. He lives in Ohio with his family. Huiyee Chiew One such stateless person is Amadou, a 59-year-old electrician from Mauritania, who arrived in the United States more than 25 years ago, fleeing conflict that had broken out between his home country and Senegal. (Amadou is a pseudonym. His name is being withheld to protect his identity.) Advertisement Like thousands of others without nationalities, he became a citizen of nowhere for reasons beyond his control. People may become stateless because they are born to parents without nationalities — one of the world's largest groups of stateless people are the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group who live in Myanmar and face persecution. Or they live through the dissolution of their home country, like Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, or more recently Sudan or South Sudan, or their government restricts access to citizenship for some groups — like the Bedoons, an Arab minority in Kuwait, who Born and raised in Arab-dominated Mauritania, Amadou lived an uneventful life until a border dispute erupted with neighboring Senegal in 1989. The conflict escalated into ethnic violence, and the Mauritanian government stripped tens of thousands of Black Mauritanians of their citizenship and expelled them to Senegal. Amadou was one of them. Left with nothing and without any legal documents, he survived by doing farmwork. He often went hungry. In 2000, he fled to the United States in the hope of getting asylum. To enter the United States, he used a passport obtained by a friend with connections in the Mauritanian government. Amadou knew the passport deal was illegal, but he had no other choice. He was able to use the fraudulent passport to apply for a US tourist visa and boarded a flight for New York. Once here, he applied for asylum. In the years waiting for his asylum petition to be decided, he lived in Ohio, working as an electrician. But in 2007 his petition was denied and he was ordered to leave the country. The irony is that Amadou's asylum petition was denied in part because the court said that the conditions in Mauritania had improved and that he was unlikely to face persecution if he returned — which would have been relevant if Amadou was indeed still a citizen of that country. Advertisement Lynn Tramonte, the director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, is familiar with Amadou's case. She has witnessed how a lack of understanding among lawyers and immigration judges about statelessness in cases involving Black Mauritanians often leads to deportation. 'Every day [people like Amadou] get a reminder that no country claims you. It's like you are a ghost. But you are still a person,' says Tramonte. Amadou's former attorney, Aneesha Gandhi, says he was not immediately deported in 2007 because Immigration and Customs Enforcement was unable to obtain travel documents for him from the Mauritanian government — unsurprising given that it had revoked his citizenship. So instead, he was placed under an order of supervision and allowed to remain and work in the United States until a solution could be found. That meant reporting regularly to ICE. Amadou says he never missed a check-in. He complied with ICE's requirement to apply for travel documents through the Mauritanian embassy, but the officials there ignored his requests. As an electrician, Amadou always carries his helmet and tool bag to work. Huiyee Chiew And so years passed. Amadou worked in construction, married, and had three children. He and his wife, who is undocumented, settled down in an Ohio suburb. He allowed himself to believe he would be able to stay in the United States, even if he couldn't figure out a path to legal residency. ICE officials had told him so. Advertisement Amadou lives by his grandfather's words: 'Make it good, make it well, make it right.' He focused on working hard, paying taxes, following the law, and raising a happy family. But being stateless, he knew his life could be upended in an instant, no matter how hard he worked to make his immigration status right. Then Donald Trump took office in 2017. Stateless in the age of Trump President Trump has called the asylum system the ' Unlike the Obama administration, which prioritized the deportation of people who had recently been ordered to leave and allowed both ICE attorneys and immigration officers more discretion in individual cases, the first Trump administration targeted all noncitizens who had outstanding orders of removal, old and new, according to the In late 2018, ICE arrested Amadou without warning during a routine check-in. The officers, he recalled, were aggressive, questioning how someone like him with a removal order could have children here. He did not answer but lowered his head. They handcuffed him and took him into custody. Amadou's wife became the family's anchor after his deportation. Huiyee Chiew Amadou spent eight months in ICE detention before authorities finally obtained a temporary travel document to deport him back to Mauritania. The catch: His travel document, issued by Mauritania, only allowed him to stay in that country for 90 to 120 days. (The Mauritanian embassy did not respond to questions about Amadou's case.) Advertisement When Amadou landed in Mauritania, immigration officers barred him from entering the country, saying, 'You are not a Mauritanian.' With nowhere else to go, Amadou traveled to neighboring Senegal to meet relatives of his with the help of a friend. The only things he had were a cane to help him walk, because of a quickly deteriorating necrotic hip, and a plastic bag holding some clothes. 'You don't have papers, you don't have anything,' Amadou said. Back in Ohio, Amadou's family struggled to stay afloat. They didn't see Amadou again for six years. Living in limbo At the end of 2024, Amadou was granted humanitarian parole by the Biden administration, allowing him to temporarily enter the United States. He returned to his home in Ohio. Amadou's humanitarian parole, however, has an expiration date. He is now trying every possible avenue to find a legal way to stay. He has reason to worry. President Trump has called for mass deportations, enhanced ICE enforcement, and the rollback of parole programs. In January, he suspended asylum applications at the southern border, citing an ' Samantha Sitterley, a staff attorney at The bill, first introduced by Representative Jamie Raskin and Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland in 2022, addresses statelessness by establishing a federal definition, determination procedure, protective status, and a pathway to permanent residency and citizenship. It was written by advocates and experts in the field, including United Stateless, and stateless individuals themselves. If passed, the bill could end the legal limbo for stateless persons like Amadou. Advertisement But the chances of passing the bill seem slim for now. Realistically, Sitterley said, the Department of Homeland Security should at least adopt a statelessness definition to ensure a more consistent and humanitarian approach toward stateless people. David Baluarte, a law professor specializing in immigration at the City University of New York School of Law, and who previously worked with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on a study of statelessness, recalled that when he started working on the issue during the Obama administration, few even knew what 'stateless' meant. And although awareness has grown, political will to do anything about the problem has not. 'The perception [of the current administration] is that they [immigrants] are the problem: 'We need to get rid of them,'' he says. 'Congress is not going to prioritize immigration legislation right now.' He is also concerned about attacks on birthright citizenship. If that constitutional right were taken away, the United States would face a growing stateless population of children born within its borders to undocumented and stateless immigrants. Amadou prays regularly and gives thanks to God for helping him get through difficult times. Huiyee Chiew For Amadou, life remains uncertain. But his years away from his family have shown him to embrace what time he does have with them. After all, everything could change tomorrow.
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
What's it like to believe we live inside a video game?
Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But even though people who are drawn to the simulation hypothesis frame it as reasoned thinking informed by science and technology, it's remarkably like religion: It is fueled by faith and works only as an allegory. Advertisement That is my main takeaway from Advertisement The title of the book reveals a contradiction in this idea. Start with the term 'hypothesis,' which is misleading. The claim that we are in a simulation is not falsifiable, because any evidence seemingly to the contrary could just be part of the simulation. So it's not a hypothesis in the scientific sense. No one says Christians have a 'Jesus hypothesis.' And indeed, by the end of the title, Virk is past conjecture and expressing belief. The book didn't My interview with Virk has been edited and condensed. How confident are you that we live inside a simulation? When I wrote the first edition of this book, I said it was more than 50 percent. Now I think it's over 70 percent, maybe as high as 80 percent likely that we are inside a video game. Rizwan Virk at a 2017 event for Play Labs, an MIT accelerator program that he founded and ran. MIT How does this shape your worldview? I have to explain what I call the NPC ('non-player character') versus RPG ('role-playing game') flavors of the simulation hypothesis. In the NPC version, everyone is just AI running on a computer, and that's it. As soon as the game is over or it's shut down, that character no longer exists, that world no longer exists. I think when most academics talk about the simulation hypothesis, that's what they're talking about. Advertisement At the other end of the spectrum is the RPG version. This is closer to what was depicted in the movie 'The Matrix.' In that version, you are a player that exists outside of the game, and inside the game you have an avatar or a player character. And that would be us — our avatars would be our bodies inside the simulation. I think you reach very different conclusions depending on where you end up on this axis. In RPG video games, you choose your particular character that you're going to play and you choose a particular storyline. You still are free to make decisions along that storyline that will affect the game. So when something happens in my life that's difficult, like a physical difficulty or financial or other difficulties, I think of it as a kind of quest: 'OK, this is a more difficult quest or achievement. Let me see if I can get through it.' In what other ways does this play out for you? There is this idea in quantum physics of a multiverse, where there are different possibilities and we're trying them out in different universes. There's not a good understanding of exactly how that would work in a physical universe. But in a computational universe, you can think of it as perhaps there's a part of me, the player, that's actually trying out different things. In my life I chose to become an entrepreneur and spent most of my time in Silicon Valley, but I've also had an affinity for more of an academic path. I didn't get a PhD earlier, but that was one of those paths — I felt that there was a version of me that had tried it out and was interested in trying out that path. And so later in life, I have returned to academia as a professor, getting a PhD as well. In a simulated universe, I could try out different possibilities in my life. Advertisement Virk writes that his intuitions about the simulation hypothesis arose from "many different threads of my life." Penguin Random House Then there is the question of how we should play the video game of life and what its purpose is. I don't think we're playing a game like 'Grand Theft Auto,' where your goal is to inflict a bunch of damage on other people. Within the religious and spiritual context, there's this idea that how we treat other people matters. It's one of the core ideas across religions and even in people who've had near-death experiences: that we have to review the deeds of our life and how we affected other people. And with a virtual reality model, there's a technological basis for how that might work. It's called the life review. The life review is a replay, if you will, of the things that we did in our lives. And you're going to have to replay the game from [other people's] point of view — not just see but feel what it was like to be these other people. This changes my perspective on how I treat other people and relationships, because I think that may actually be the bigger point of the game. I am not sure how much you're using video games as a metaphor, and how much you really believe that they describe the essence of reality. Both interpretations would apply to what you just said. Advertisement Well, I think it's a bit of both. I think of the simulation hypothesis as having a few basic underpinnings or assumptions. One is that the universe consists of information. The second is that that information gets rendered in a way that looks real. And then the third is that it's some kind of a hoax or a game, if you think of it from the RPG perspective. I think that's what religious scriptures have done for a long time, saying that the world is like a dream, which was the metaphor that was used in, say, Buddhism and in other religious texts as well. I'm using our technology to describe it. I think it's the best metaphor to date for the underlying nature of reality, because video games are built on computation and information processing, and so is the physical universe. I'm not disagreeing that it's a metaphor, and it's a metaphor that may not be complete, but it's way more complete than anything else that we've come up with. There's a meme going around that anyone who doesn't exhibit much original thought is a mere NPC — an automated, non-player character. Right. Yes. So are we living in a world where some of us are actual characters and other people are just filling the background? What I've come to believe is that it's better to assume everyone is actually a player character or an avatar because that affects how you treat them. And this gets back to my earlier statement about how I don't think we're living in 'Grand Theft Auto.' Advertisement That said, I think we all enter NPC mode. In NPC mode, we are just an AI that has been trained by our life experiences. So if you think of AI today and large language models like ChatGPT, they are a certain type of neural network that's been trained on a certain amount of data. And similarly, we also have a neural network that gets trained on our life experiences and how we've been trained, whether it's from the time we were brought up, it's religious training, or indoctrination within different philosophies and political parties. I think what happens is we get into NPC mode and then we play different roles for different people. So it's possible that other people are playing a role for us in a quest in our lives, but that doesn't mean that we should treat them as expendable. Somebody once said to me, 'I think my husband is an NPC.' I said, 'Well, I don't think that's a healthy attitude. Assume that they have their own set of stories and quests, but maybe they're playing a role for you for certain challenges and for certain adventures that you're having in this life.' Was that person who said that to you a woman? Yeah. That's interesting to me, because I think I've only ever heard the simulation hypothesis espoused by men. Well, I think that was true initially. I'm finding that if you are not just talking about the NPC version, if you're not talking about 'everybody is an AI,' then I find many more women interested in the idea. Here's a worry I have about the simulation idea. If you think all this is probably a video game, then it doesn't seem like a stretch to say, 'It might not be so bad if we destroy the environment by filling every single square foot of earth with a data center, as long as doing so lets us create quintillions of simulated worlds that could be as beautiful and meaningful as ours is.' How can the simulation idea comport with traditions that tell us to take care of creation as the only world we've got? Well, I don't know that the simulation hypothesis is necessarily saying that any worlds that we create are as valuable as this world, because now you're thinking of layers of the simulation. But this gets back to the central issue that I've been talking about, which is the NPC versus RPG version. We're here for a reason: We've chosen to go through what many, many ancient traditions have called the veil of forgetfulness, to be here and to forget that we're players from outside this world. So it doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy this particular world. And more importantly, it doesn't mean we should destroy this world. In an ongoing role-playing game, others will enter after us, and we have a responsibility to them. Rizwan Virk will be talking about his book before a screening of ' in Brookline on July 28. Brian Bergstein is the editor of the Globe Ideas section. He can be reached at
Boston Globe
2 hours ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Trump's cuts threaten to rip research up by the roots
The chain saw approach to medical research funding is not just reckless — it's shortsighted. The families of the richest 2 percent also get cancer and other deadly diseases, and no amount of money can buy a cure that doesn't exist. Advertisement Dennis E. Noonan Wellesley Thank you for Kara Miller's article on the challenges of long-term research in the face of the Trump administration's cuts ( Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up While only a small fraction of original ideas achieve success as envisioned, scientists consistently persevere with passion for their ideas. The research environment overall, however, brings waves of advances. Unlike the business and dealmaking mind-set of the current administration's so-called leaders, scientists are not self-promoters by type. They struggle for funding over years, driven by their passion for making a difference for the world. Advertisement The most telling risk inherent in the Trump cuts is the potential impact on global competition. As Miller points out, for decades some of the world's best minds have come here, with the United States having benefited. But more recently, greater global tools and competition have prompted serious foreign competition for the best minds — and for the opportunities to control future technologies. The administration's cuts would put the United States more than a generation behind in our children's and grandchildren's future world. Larry Kennedy Jacksonville, Fla. I weep when I see what the Trump administration is doing to our country and our world. Kara Miller's article on the savaging of basic science — 'research aimed at understanding rather than commercializing' — is but one example. This type of research may have no application right away. However, over 20 or 30 years, many dozens of applications may emerge, often covering many different fields. The original development rarely occurs in business laboratories because there is no immediate payoff. It is therefore essential that government continue to fund basic science. As Miller points out, a stable flow of funding is essential for the production of a continuing stream of research results. Disruption of the Trumpian kind has several undesirable results: Besides stopping the flow of original ideas, over the long term it will reduce our capacity to learn from and absorb ideas produced in other countries. We have seen mid-career scientists being welcomed by other countries while the paths of early-career scientists have been demolished. American politicians, Republican and Democratic alike, must stand up to the president and say, 'Basic research is the seed corn for 'Making America Great Again.' It must not be destroyed.' They should then act and vote accordingly in Congress. Advertisement Martin G. Evans Cambridge The writer is a professor emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- General
- Boston Globe
2 ban or not 2 ban: Contrasting views on cellphones in schools
Making sure phones are off and put away at least gives teachers a chance to run the classroom free of technological distractions, and it gives kids more age-important interpersonal interactions than if their heads are constantly buried in their phones. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up The one study Cardet-Hernandez cites about teens and depression relies on data gathered between 2009 and 2017 and could hardly be called conclusive (surely a few things have changed in social media and in American life since then). Advertisement Take it from someone who's in the classroom: The buzz about keeping phones out is justified. The push to diminish their stranglehold on kids' lives should take place at home, too. Max F. Roberts Natick The writer is a history teacher at Newton North High School. Students should learn how these devices can enhance their education Thank you to Brandon Cardet-Hernandez for his op-ed, Advertisement Legislators and other state officials also should do more to increase student time in classrooms and to develop high-stakes curriculum and testing for student success. They should also commit to increasing student opportunities to attend classrooms offering vocational and academic education. Right now, Ford Spalding Westwood The writer is a former member of the School Committee for the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School in Lexington. Insidious distraction or lifeline to the world? Brandon Cardet-Hernandez's op-ed was paired with a counter op-ed by Jhilam Biswas, headlined Following is an edited sampling of comments on that piece by online readers: We are performing a giant experiment on the minds of children, one we mostly did not seek, that involves powerful tech companies employing behavioral and other techniques to get kids (and adults) viciously addicted to their devices. Can't be a good outcome. (Hanscome) Cellphones enable deep connections with people not in one's immediate vicinity as well as enabling contact in emergencies. This reflexive bashing of the digital world is ridiculous. (FNA) These devices and apps are designed to be addictive. Many adults have trouble putting them aside. For kids, they're normalizing being distracted. (greengrassofmass)
