Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have sued the Trump administration in federal court to block an order that would mean all international students not attending in-person classes would be stripped of visas.
The institutions, which contain two of the world's leading architecture schools, filed the lawsuit in the US District Court in Boston today to halt a directive issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requiring that all foreign college students be enrolled in courses that include in-person classes to maintain visas.
"The effect is to create as much chaos for universities"
The ICE order reverses an exemption that was made on 13 March amid the coronavirus pandemic that meant students on nonimmigrant F-1 student visas were no longer required to attend most classes in person in order to maintain their status. When the government made this decision it was "in effect for the duration of the emergency", the lawsuit argued, and has impacted the arrangments colleges have already made for the next term.
"The effect ? and perhaps even the goal ? is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible," said the lawsuit.
"Given that the pandemic continues to rage, with record numbers of infections in the United States every day, Harvard and MIT concluded, after careful planning processes, that, to protect the health and lives of their students, faculty, staff, and communities, they sh...