TOPLINE
Harvard and MIT announced Wednesday they filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration a day after the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced international students will have to leave the country or transfer if their colleges and universities opt to have only online classes in the fall — and other schools that have objected to the decision may follow suit.
Harvard and MIT filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday.
KEY FACTS
In the 24-page court filing against ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Harvard and MIT wrote that the ability to offer remote classes during the pandemic is “of paramount importance to universities across the country” as crowded classrooms have the potential to turn into “super-spreader situations” that could put the health of students, university staff and community members at risk.
The lawsuit seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to bar the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE from enforcing federal guidelines barring international students attending colleges and universities offering only online courses from staying in the U.S.
They argued 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.
As students left campuses and started remote classes because of the pandemic, ICE made an “exemption” in March to a preexisting rule that students in the country on certain nonimmigrant student visas must attend a majority of classes in-person and that it would be in effect for the “duration of the emergency.”
Harvard and MIT said that colleges and universities had planned for the academic year under the impression that the “exemption” would still be in place allowing international students to stay in the country even if classes were mostly, or totally, online, “ICE’s rescission of that recognition failed to consider numerous weighty interests, and is itself arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion,” the school’s wrote.
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a CNN interview Tuesday that the decision would encourage U.S. universities to open in the fall, that the administration was providing more flexibility for international students than in the past and that, if schools do not reopen physical campuses, “there isn’t a reason” for international students to remain in the country.
crucial quote
“ICE’s action also leaves universities across the country, including Harvard and MIT, in the untenable situation of either moving forward with their carefully calibrated, thoughtful, and difficult decisions to proceed with their curricula fully or largely online in the fall of 2020—which, under ICE’s new directive, would undermine the education, safety, and future prospects of their international students and their campus community—or to attempt, with just weeks before classes resume, to provide in-person education despite the grave risk to public health and safety that such a change would entail,” Harvard and MIT wrote.
tangent
After learning that Harvard would offer all of its fall classes online, President Donald Trump on Tuesday called the decision “ridiculous” and “an easy way out” and said, “they ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
what to watch for
Some of America’s top-ranked universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Brown, Stanford, MIT, NYU and the University of Pennsylvania have condemned ICE’s announcement and it is possible that other universities will speak out and some may head to court like Harvard and MIT.
big number
$44.7 billion. That is how much international students in the U.S. contributed to the national economy in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
further reading
Harvard, MIT Sue Immigration Authorities Over Rule Barring International Students From Online-Only Universities (The Harvard Crimson)
Top Universities Vow To Protect International Students From ‘Deeply Cruel’ ICE Deportation Policy (Forbes)
