Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is suing the Trump administration in federal court over a move to strip international students of their visas if their coursework is entirely online when classes resume in the fall.
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, seeks a temporary restraining order against the policy, which was announced Monday. The lawsuit also seeks an order vacating the policy and a declaration that it is unlawful.
ICE announced Monday that "it was rescinding its COVID-19 exemption for international students, requiring all students on F-1 visas whose university curricula are entirely online to depart the country, and barring any such students currently outside the United States from entering or re-entering the United States,” the lawsuit said.
“ICE’s action leaves hundreds of thousands of international students with no educational options within the United States,” the lawsuit said.
“Just weeks from the start of the fall semester, these students are largely unable to transfer to universities providing on-campus instruction," the lawsuit said, adding that for many such students, returning to their home countries for online instruction is "impossible, impracticable, prohibitively expensive, and/or dangerous.”
The Trump administration's move was seen as a way to pressure colleges and universities to re-open their campuses with in-person classes during the pandemic.
That, the lawsuit said, would require housing students in "densely packed residential halls," which is neither safe nor "educationally advisable," and force schools to reopen without sufficient time to address "the additional risks to the health and safety of their communities."
“The effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible," the lawsuit said.
DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy DHS secretary, defended the policy during an interview with CNN Tuesday.
"If they’re not going to be a student or they’re going to be 100 percent online, then they don’t have a basis to be here," Cuccinelli said. “They should go home, and then they can return when the school opens."
On Monday, Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced plans to bring back up to 40 percent of its undergraduates back to campus, including all first-year students, for the fall semester. MIT said only seniors will be invited back to campus this fall semester.
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July 08, 2020 at 09:54PM
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Harvard, MIT sue Trump administration over rule that strips visas from international students - NBC News
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