Harvard, MIT sue Trump administration over new rule for foreign students

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have reportedly sued the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the new guidelines which disallow international students from remaining in the United States if their classes have been moved to online-only mode due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The two American educational institutions filed the lawsuit against the two federal agencies at the District Court in Boston earlier today, according to a report in the Harvard Crimson.

As part of the lawsuit, the institutions seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to bar the DHS and ICE from enforcing the new guidelines that will force international students to leave the US.

Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow, in an email to affiliates, said that the latest order by the Trump administration came down without any notice and that "its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness", the report noted.

"We will pursue this case vigorously so that our international students and international students at institutions across the country can continue their studies without the threat of deportation", Bacow said, according to the Crimson report.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on July 6 announced that for the fall 2020 semester, students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States. The guidelines said that non-immigrant students have to show that they are taking minimum classes online in order to remain in the US. The move is likely to impact thousands of Indians, who along with the Chinese, form the largest number of overseas students in the US.

Also Read: Policy change on international students is misguided, say US universities and lawmakers

Students on non-immigrant F-1 and M-1 visas cannot remain in the US or legally enter the country if their studies are entirely online, ICE said, adding that students may transfer to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status.

The Crimson report said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced Tuesday that her office will sue over the guidelines, which she called cruel and illegal.

The Harvard lawsuit argues that the guidelines violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to consider important aspects of the problem in advance of its release, failing to provide a reasonable basis for the policy, and failing to adequately notify the public.

The federal agency has said that students attending schools adopting a hybrid model, which includes a mixture of online and in-person classes, will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online.
These schools must certify to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program that the program is not entirely online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load for the fall 2020 semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online classes required to make normal progress in their degree program.

(With inputs from PTI)