The increase in gun violence is one of the biggest concerns in America this hot summer of 2022. On June 25, a bipartisan gun control bill – that many on both sides of the political aisle call minimalist at best – was signed into law by President Biden. It grants national support for states to operationalize and enforce “Red Flag Gun Protection Restraining Orders” in their jurisdictions. To date 19 states and the District of Colombia have passed such regulations. The national bill was pushed and passed largely due to years of efforts by Hispanic Congressman from Santa Barbara, CA, Salud Carbajal (D).

The Red Flag Gun law enables law enforcement, family members, college and school officials and even doctors to petition civil courts to remove firearms from people who show signs of being homicidal or suicidal. The petition and removal can be expedited in a short time — within hours in an emergency situation. It came about after the desperate efforts, in 2014, of a Los Angeles mother and father to get police in Santa Barbara to apprehend their adult son, who was driving to the University of California SB campus from LA with a loaded gun and the declared intent to kill some students in Isla Vista, the campus community where he lived although he was not a UCSB student. The parents were told that police hands were tied until he actually committed a crime; he killed seven people, firing into crowds while driving his black BMW.    

Red Flag gun regulations were legislated in California in 2016, and in various other states after many starts and stops. Interagency cooperation is essential as most key "red flag" protection orders are typically signed in cities and counties where schools, police departments and mental health agencies are sharing information. Opponents fear the “slippery slope” of detention or privately-owned weapons being removed from an individual on hearsay. More than 1,000 cities and counties in red-flag states have declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” where local police have vowed not to use the laws. Their mantra is: “innocent until proven guilty.” It violates due process, say some. 

Will red flag gun laws be instituted at a college near you this Fall? 

Congress Fails to Pass Bill to Grant Automatic Green Cards to Foreign Grad Students -- Again

It is a little acknowledged fact among the general public (although fairly well-known inside the higher education community) that permits granting students from other countries legal status to study in the United States – mainly the F1 and J1 foreign student and foreign scholar visas – are temporary, non-immigration permits. Established in the 1950s to allow highly qualified students, mainly from war-ravaged Europe, to study at top U.S. universities, they were never intended to be permanent residency permits. Even today, the State Department  - that vets universities to be designated institutions that host and monitor foreign students (now called “international” students) - extols the advantages of having led many world leaders and national presidents to be lifelong friends of the U.S., after having studied here as youths. But nowhere in the foreign student visas application process is there any word about immigrating. In fact, it is a common warning from U.S. Consular Officers who must approve a student’s permit in their homeland, once they have been granted admission to a particular U.S. university or college, that there is one surefire way of not getting, or being able to renew, a student permit: indicate in any way the intention of immigrating (such as having family, property, bank account, longterm employment already established in the United States).

Precisely because the visa is temporary and non-immigration, there is no limit to the number of foreign student visas colleges can give out in a year. For each of the past ten years, even during COVID, over a million foreign nationals resided, studied and worked at “temporary” training jobs in the U.S. as international students. The vast majority are from three countries: China, Korea and India.

Still, for at least the past ten years, foreign student advocates, both Democratic and Republican, have lobbied to allow foreign students – especially the some 400,000 a year who are studying for advanced degrees (MSs and Ph.D.s) in the STEM fields -- to be given automatic green cards instead of being “kicked out.” Almost every year, legislation to that effect or permutations of it (i.e.: only Ph.D.s or only in certain kinds of engineering or medical science) make their way at least through preliminary committee processes for immigration, education or labor reform before failing. On Tuesday July 12, yet another version failed in the House Rules Committee: the number of new immigration permits given out each year are regulated by Congress (now at about one million a year) and immigrant national origin limits are ruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibits any discrimination against nor preference for any nationality. Thus, the lack of diversity of foreign students, especially STEM graduate students, as well as their numbers (hundreds of thousands a year) doom the idea of automatic immigrant green cards for the foreseeable future.

How SCOTUS Procedural Rulings May Affect Executive Actions

Recent decisions by the Supreme Court on state abortion laws, Roe vs. Wade, Title IX, DACA and Migrant “Stay in Mexico” rulings, just to name a few, have shown a court eager to send the making and execution of federal laws back to Congress to clarify and specify jurisdictions and authorities. One SCOTUS significant decision most pundits missed occurred on the last day of the court: on June 30, SCOTUS diminished the authority of federal agencies (like the EPA, Education Dept., CDC and the like) to decide how to execute ambiguous laws (in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency). The ruling compels agencies to regulate laws only as Congress intended and within their statutory authority. One example of the ruling’s impact could be to end the practice of college officials claiming sole authority to adjudicate penalties in campus sexual assault accusations. Title IX is ambiguous about dealing with college sexual assault. The Department of Education and college officials have no statutory authority to decide on guilt or innocence, punishment and discipline of accused assaulters without basic mandatory due process procedures. This ruling could make it illegal for college committees to decide on sexual assault punishments alone.