Seventeen states filed a lawsuit against the Trump Administration Monday over a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directive requiring student visa holders to leave the U.S. if their college courses are completely online.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S District Court in Massachusetts, claims ICE’s “arbitrary” directive “risks sacrificing the health and safety of students, faculty, and staff—and, indeed, our States more generally.” (RELATED: Here’s How College Professors And Students Are Trying To Stop ICE From Deporting International Students)
ICE announced July 6 that non-immigrant F1 and M1 Visa holders “may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.” Failing to follow the directive could result in deportation for the students, ICE said. Over 370,000 international students in 1,124 institutions study in the states involved in the lawsuit, according to NBC News.
The ICE announcement was met with fury across the country as universities had been preparing for fully- online classes. Harvard University President Larry Bacow said the forced reopening of some in-person classes comes “without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others.”
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed their own lawsuit against the ICE directive July 8.
Many colleges and universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, Princeton, and Northeastern, have announced plans to file amicus briefs in support of Harvard and MIT https://t.co/23hDkfcfzT
— Harvard University (@Harvard) July 13, 2020
Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway said the new ruling may require a hybrid setup that will “meet the in-person learning requirements of the new guidance in ways that assure the health and safety of the students and faculty who would be required to attend or lead those classes.”
The Trump Administration has continued to support the new mandate, claiming it encourages schools to return to in-person classes. Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany supported the ICE directive Thursday. “You don’t get a visa for taking online classes from, let’s say, University of Phoenix. So why would you if you were just taking online classes, generally?” McEnany said.
SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020
“Perhaps the better lawsuit would be coming from students who have to pay full tuition with no access to in-person classes to attend,” McEnany said.
Many universities in support of the lawsuit have been criticized for keeping tuition the same even for an online-only semester; over 28,000 students have signed a petition demanding Rutgers lowers its tuition for the fall.
The lawsuit was filed jointly by the attorneys general of Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. The District of Columbia joined the states against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, who were named as the defendants.
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