Two of the United States’ most prestigious universities, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are suing the US government over the directive by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deport international students studying in the US on F-1 and M-1 visas if their courses are made online-only.
The two premier universities filed a lawsuit at the US District Court of Boston, seeking to block the directive on the grounds that it violated the Administrative Procedures Act and noting that the state of emergency triggered by President Donald Trump over the COVID-19 pandemic had yet to end.
Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow said in an email to affiliates that the “order came down without notice—its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness. We believe that the ICE order is bad public policy, and we believe that it is illegal.”
"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.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a press release issued Monday 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.
In the injunctive suit filed by “President and Fellows of Harvard College; and Massachusetts Institute of Technology” against the DHS, ICE, the Acting Secretary of the DHS and the Acting Director of ICE, the two universities say the new ICE order had thrown Harvard, MIT and “virtually all of higher education in the United States” into chaos.
“On July 6, 2020, ICE announced 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 reentering the United States. ICE also purported to require schools whose classes would be entirely online to submit an ‘operational change plan’ no later than Wednesday, July 15, 2020—nine days after the change was announced. It also announced that universities that have adopted a hybrid model—a mixture of online and in-person classes—will have to certify for each student on an F1 visa 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,” the complaint read.
It added that ICE’s action proceeded “without any indication of having considered the health of students, faculty, university staff, or communities” and that it left “hundreds of thousands of international students with no educational options within the United States”. Indians are the second-largest group among international students in the US, with over 200,000 visiting the US for higher education in 2019. In the lawsuit, Harvard said it had over 5,000 students on the F-1 visa, while MIT said it had over 4,000.
The COVID-19 pandemic threw regular education into chaos, forcing many institutes to adopt online-only models. Now, however, as the Trump administration encourages reopening of the economy, the stay on the visa exception clause that allowed foreign students to remain in the US to attend online classes is seen as a push to force universities to resume regular classes.
On Wednesday, President Trump tweeted saying he disagreed with the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) on their "very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools". "While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!" Trump tweeted.
In the complaint, Harvard and MIT argue that the number of COVID-19 cases is expected to continue to grow exponentially over the coming months, citing CDC projections of over 200 million people getting infected with the virus over the course of the pandemic. It states that the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) guidelines to allow students to retain their visas while pursuing remote learning were made as “temporary provisions” that would remain in effect throughout the duration of the emergency, and notes that President Trump’s emergency declaration has yet to be rescinded.
With inputs from PTI