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Wisconsin universities and their international students could face major dilemmas under federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidance announced this week.
“Thousands of international students pursuing degrees at UW-Madison may be forced to leave the country, risk deportation or transfer to another institution if the university moves all of its classes online this fall in the interest of public health,” Kelly Meyerhofer reports for the Wisconsin State Journal. “…The ICE rule puts universities across the country in a no-win position: Continue in-person learning despite rising levels of coronavirus infection or lose international students, a key source of revenue for many institutions because they typically pay higher tuition rates.”
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to block the guidance, according to media reports.
Top Stories
UW-Madison’s foreign students must transfer or leave U.S. if fall classes move online — Wisconsin State Journal
People are waiting as long as 4 hours at Wisconsin coronavirus testing sites as cases rise — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin joins federal lawsuit over pandemic relief funds for private schools — Associated Press
As coronavirus cases rise in Latinx community, health care providers confront language barrier — Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
Republicans want to give loans to unemployed Wisconsinites using CARES funding; plan needs Evers’ approval — Kenosha News
Tony Evers sends 2 million face masks, 4,000 thermometers to schools for fall — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin Republicans promise coronavirus safety as 300 expected at state convention in Green Bay — Green Bay Press Gazette
What a second coronavirus wave could mean for Wisconsin unemployment — WTMJ-TV
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Government updates
Wisconsin Department of Health Services
U.S. Centers and Disease Control and Prevention
Housing trouble?
Are you a Milwaukeean who is worried about losing your home or apartment because of the pandemic? Share your experience with News414, Wisconsin Watch’s service journalism collaboration with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and Outlier media. Click here for details.
Quotable
“I have long wished for an end to an era in which a seeming requirement of professional workplace behavior was to pretend that you either had no home life, or that there was a strict and total separation between your role as a family member and as a denizen of a workplace. Perhaps this pandemic is offering an opportunity to do away with this fiction, for the benefit of us all.”
Dr. Dipesh Navsaria, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, writing for the Cap Times
“Since the state Supreme Court Decision in Legislature v. Palm, it has become clear that your position is that you will not accept strong action to limit this pandemic led by the Executive Branch of state government. If that is the case, then you have a clear moral imperative to act within the Legislative Branch to prevent further illness and death among Wisconsinites.”
The Wisconsin Council of Churches in a letter to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald
Data to note
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services on Wednesday reported 598 new cases of COVID-19, with 5.6% of tests returning positive. The department reported two new deaths in a pandemic that has reportedly killed 807.
Here’s the latest visualization of new cases from our partners at WisContext.
!function(e,i,n,s){var t=”InfogramEmbeds”,d=e.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement(“script”);o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src=”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”,d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,”infogram-async”); !function(e,i,n,s){var t=”InfogramEmbeds”,d=e.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement(“script”);o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src=”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”,d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,”infogram-async”);The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 62 active COVID-19 investigations of nursing homes as of Wednesday, and 71 additional investigations are closed.
In Wisconsin, just one case of a staff member or resident testing positive for COVID-19 triggers a facility-wide investigation of a nursing home. The data do not include nursing homes with fewer than 10 beds or homes where investigations are closed.
Residents of nursing homes are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19. Long-term care facilities, which include nursing homes and assisted living facilities, account for 4% of the state’s confirmed COVID-19 cases and 42% of deaths during the pandemic, according to DHS.
https://bi.wisconsin.gov/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js
Resilient Wisconsin
People helping others and showing resilience during this time of anxiety. Send suggestions by tagging us on social media — @wisconsinwatch — or emailing us: tips@wisconsinwatch.org.
MKE non-profit serves more students with autism using distance learning — WTMJ-TV
Trevor Keller of PBS Wisconsin was among many Tuesday to capture a double rainbow that stretched across Madison.
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsTonight’s double rainbow over the Wisconsin Capitol at sunset. #wiwx #rainbow @spann pic.twitter.com/pvXHfeEF1U
— Trevor Keller (@trevkeller) July 8, 2020
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The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (wisconsinwatch.org) collaborates with Wisconsin Public Radio, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by the Center do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
