Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration on Wednesday over a plan to crack down on international students who take courses online.
The two prestigious universities are seeking a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to prevent the government from following through with a plan to disallow international students from taking full course loads online and reside in the United States, according to Harvard’s newspaper the Crimson.
“The order came down without notice — its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness,” Harvard’s president, Lawrence S. Bacow, said in a message to the university community. “It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others.”
Universities have turned to online learning as they seek to limit the number of people on campus during the coronavirus pandemic. The lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in Boston, came days after the administration announced its new policy.
“Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement about the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. “The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States.”
ICE is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
Students who live or plan to move to the U.S. and are enrolled in programs that will be entirely online won’t be allowed to stay in the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status, the agency said.
“If they’re not going to be a student or they’re going to be 100% online, then they don’t have a basis to be here,” Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of the Homeland Security Department, said in an interview on CNN. “They should go home, and then they can return when the school opens.”
