One week after issuing a policy requiring international students at U.S. colleges and universities to leave the country if their fall semester classes are conducted entirely online, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abruptly withdrew its rule ahead of legal challenges.
ICE”™s Student and Exchange Visitor Program issued a temporary exemption regarding online studies this past spring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rule stated that students who find themselves with online-exclusive coursework “must leave the country or take alternative steps to maintain their nonimmigrant status such as a reduced course load or appropriate medical leave.”
After announcing its rule, ICE was the subject of multiple lawsuits. In yesterday”™s session of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were prepared to present their case against the agency. However, Judge Allison Burroughs announced that the schools reached an agreement with ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that resulted in the rule being rescinded.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and her Connecticut counterpart William Tong were part of a coalition of state attorneys general that readied their own lawsuit against ICE.
James heralded ICE”™s turnaround as “welcome news for more than 100,000 international students in New York, more than one million students across the country, and millions of additional families across the world,” while Tong said the Trump administration “owes an apology to the hundreds of thousands of international students who contribute tremendously to the academic, cultural, and economic vibrancy of our educational institutions.”
