Florida has appealed after a federal judge sided with two Chinese graduate students in a battle about a 2023 law that seeks to restrict ties between state universities and colleges and China.
U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez on March 28 issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed last year by two Florida International University doctoral students and a University of Florida professor. The ruling focused on the students, who say the 2023 law has prevented them from working as graduate teaching assistants, positions that carry stipends and other benefits.
The students, Zhipeng Yin and Zhen Guo, received what are known as F-1 visas from the federal government to study in the U.S. The lawsuit contends, in part, that federal law controls immigration and national-security issues and that the Florida law (SB 846) conflicts with that authority.
Martinez approved recommendations from U.S. Magistrate Judge Eduardo Sanchez, who said a preliminary injunction should be issued to prevent the state from enforcing the law to prevent employment of students with F-1 visas. The preliminary injunction applies to students throughout the state.
Members of the state university system’s Board of Governors, system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. are defendants in the case.
“As enacted, SB 846 requires the Board of Governors to make a national security determination about foreign students seeking employment at state colleges and universities, just as the federal government does when determining eligibility for and issuing visas to those students,” Sanchez’ recommendation said. ”For example, although a student visa holder will have been found by the federal government to meet all of the eligibility requirements for the issued student visa, including satisfaction of national security concerns, SB 846 requires the state of Florida to conduct an independent assessment of national security concerns that may result in a conflicting national security determination. Indeed, SB 846’s application to students who have been granted student visas serves no purpose other than to revisit, question and potentially seek to override the federal immigration determination that the pertinent student does not pose a national security concern.”
The Florida Attorney General’s Office quickly filed a notice of appealing the preliminary injunction to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Also, last week, it filed a motion to put Martinez’ ruling on hold while the appeal plays out.
That motion argued that the state law is “fully consistent with federal law.”
“Federal law expects and encourages state participation in the F-1 visa process; in fact, the whole process is built on university participation and discretion — which, in the case of state universities, means the state’s participation and discretion,” the state’s attorneys wrote. “F-1 visa regulations did not displace state laws like SB 846, merely by requiring a security screening for an F-1 visa or by relieving F-1 visa-holders from otherwise-applicable federal penalties for working in the country.”
The state law was part of a package of changes that the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved targeting China. DeSantis said in May 2023 that the package was part of a “commitment to crack down on Communist China.”
“Florida is taking action to stand against the United States’ greatest geopolitical threat — the Chinese Communist Party,” DeSantis said as he signed the measures.
The education law deals with trying to prevent involvement in the higher-education system by China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Syria.
The law prevents universities and colleges from employing people who are “domiciled” in China and the other countries, unless the people go through a process to get approval from the Board of Governors or the State Board of Education, which oversees colleges.
The magistrate’s recommendation, filed Feb. 10, said Yin is pursuing doctoral studies in computer and information sciences, while Guo is studying materials engineering. In 2023, they were initially offered graduate teaching positions, which included annual stipends of $27,510 and tuition waivers, but were later told that the teaching positions were deferred because of the state law.
They have remained students at FIU but have had to pay full tuition, Sanchez wrote.
In a footnote in his recommendation, Sanchez wrote that barring enforcement of the law would “not deny Florida and its state colleges and universities discretion in making employment decisions concerning its students.”
“State colleges and universities retain the discretion that they have always had to assess the academic qualifications, experience and other pertinent factors in determining whether to accept and employ foreign students,” the magistrate judge wrote. “The supremacy of federal immigration law concerning foreign student visas, established by the federal government pursuant to its exclusive immigration and foreign affairs powers, simply precludes the state from determining eligibility for the assessment of academic employment on the basis of national security concerns and the foreign student’s country of domicile.”
