Trump Administration withdraws Rule on Foreign Students

The Trump administration canceled a proposal on Tuesday that would force foreign students to relocate or exit the country if their schools held classes exclusively online as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

Since facing eight federal complaints and resistance from hundreds of universities, the administration took the decision.

The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in a federal lawsuit in Boston brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. US District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and “return to the status quo.”

The announcement brings relief to thousands of foreign students who were at risk of being deported from the country, along with hundreds of universities who were struggling to reassess their plans for the fall in the light of the policy. Since the ban rescinded, ICE will revert under the March Directive, which abolished the traditional restrictions on online schooling for international students.

A lawyer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement stated only that the judge's characterization was right.

ICE did not elaborate on the move instantly.

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow called it a “significant victory.”

“While the government may attempt to issue a new directive, our legal arguments remain strong and the Court has retained jurisdiction, which would allow us to seek judicial relief immediately to protect our international students should the government again act unlawfully,” Bacow said in a statement.

MIT's president said his institution also stands ready “to protect our students from any further arbitrary policies.”

“This case also made abundantly clear that real lives are at stake in these matters, with the potential for real harm," President L. Rafael Reif said in a statement. "We need to approach policymaking, especially now, with more humanity, more decency — not less.”

Under the policy, international students in the US would have been forbidden from taking all their courses online this fall. New visas would not have been issued to students at schools planning to provide all classes online, which includes Harvard. Students already in the US would have faced deportation if they didn’t transfer schools or leave the country voluntarily.

And if the epidemic caused colleges to transfer all their classes online throughout the term, foreign students may have been required to switch to a campus school or leave the country.

Immigration officials issued the policy last week, reversing the earlier guidance from March 13 telling colleges that limits around online education would be suspended during the pandemic. University leaders believed the rule was part of President Donald Trump’s effort to pressure the nation’s schools and colleges to reopen this fall even as new virus cases rise.

The policy drew a sharp backlash from higher education institutions, with more than 200 signing court briefs supporting the challenge by Harvard and MIT. Colleges said the policy would put students’ safety at risk and hurt schools financially. Many schools rely on tuition from international students, and some stood to lose millions of dollars in revenue if the rule had taken hold.

Harvard and MIT were the first to contest the policy, but at least seven other federal suits had been filed by universities and states.

Harvard and MIT argued that immigration officials violated procedural rules by issuing the guidance without justification and without allowing the public to respond. They also argued that the policy contradicted ICE’s March 13 directive telling schools that existing limits on online education would be suspended “for the duration of the emergency.”

The suit noted that Trump’s national emergency declaration has not been rescinded and that virus cases are spiking in some regions.

Immigration officials, however, argued that they told colleges all along that any guidance prompted by the pandemic was subject to change. They said the rule was consistent with existing law barring international students from taking classes entirely online. Federal officials said they were providing leniency by allowing students to keep their visas even if they study online from abroad.

Source: UNB