A federal court has ordered US Citizenship and Immigration Services to accept new DACA applications and restore two-year work permit validity. Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York issued the ruling today. USCIS is required to update information on their website by Monday, as well as develop a mechanism to notify eligible applicants. The Administration has the option to appeal the decision.
Read more here.
House Democrats have released an updated, smaller, “HEROES Act 2.0”, totaling approximately $2.2 trillion. This COVID relief bill would provide support for small businesses, airline workers, childcare, food security, the Census, education, local governments, and healthcare. Specifically, $39 billion would go to colleges and universities, $3 billion would go to research relief for NIH, and $2.9 billion would go to research relief for NSF. Research relief for other agencies is not included.
A one-pager is available here.
A vote is expected in the coming days. The Senate is not expected to take action, however negotiations between House Democrats, Senate Republicans, and the Administration continue.
The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) will hold a hearing on simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). Witnesses are from the National College Attainment Network, University of North Carolina, HCM Strategies, Harvard University, and Columbia University.
In a press statement, the US Department of Education announced the publication of the final rule Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities. The rule will be effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
The final rule intends to “ensure that public institutions of higher education uphold fundamental rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that private institutions of higher education adhere to their own policies regarding freedom of speech, including academic freedom”.
Among other things, the press statement outlines major aspects of the rule, including :
The full press statement and link to fact sheet is available here.
While most of the public’s attention is focused on the difficult negotiations that may or may not be taking placing on the next COVID relief package, the clock continues to count down to the start of FY2021.
The House is working to adopt a second “minibus” of spending bills before this weekend. Instead of taking up a seven-bill package as originally planned, the chamber is now considering one made up of six pieces, having removed the almost-always-controversial Homeland Security measure from the minibus. More than 300 amendments are expected to be debated before a vote to adopt the legislation.
This week’s package is made up of: Commerce-Justice-Science; Defense; Energy and Water; Labor-HHS-Education; Financial Services-General Government; and Transportation-HUD bills. Last week, the House cleared the Agriculture, Interior, State-Foreign Operations, and VA-Military Construction measures. This leaves the Homeland Security and Legislative Branch bills for future consideration.
The Senate still has yet to produce any of the 12 bills.