U. and peer institutions file additional amicus brief against Trump travel ban

On March 30, Princeton and 30 other colleges and universities filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in an ongoing battle to resist the Trump administration’s efforts to bar immigration from numerous majority-Muslim countries.

Targeted countries now include Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

According to a statement released by the University, the new brief is specifically in support of Hawaii’s case against a Trump administration proclamation barring the entry of individuals from targeted countries into the United States. The statement notes that the new brief echoes arguments that the universities made in a previous filing in April 2017 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The new brief, according to the statement, adds that the University currently has approximately 50 students and employees from six of the affected countries. It also notes that the Graduate School has received 150 applications from students from the targeted countries for admission in the fall of 2017. Over the past five years, the Graduate School has received more than 700 applications from students in the affected countries.

The brief emphasized that the proclamation “threatens the universities’ ability to continue to attract the most talented people from around the globe.”

The University joined a different amicus brief in September 2017 that similarly stressed that the travel ban “both threatens American higher education and offends important, defining principles of our country.”

The University filed its first brief against the travel ban in February 2017, when it joined a legal challenge against President Trump’s original executive order on immigration in January.

The University’s decisions to join in the filing of the previous amicus briefs have been met with praise from students.