Harvard and MIT File Lawsuit Against New Federal Immigration Regulations
On Monday, July 6 Harvard announced plans for reopening in the Fall. Harvard’s plans include bringing roughly 40% of its students back to campus (including all of the incoming freshmen), however, it also announced that it plans to hold all of its undergraduate instruction 100% online. Harvard has previously already made the decision that its graduate programs would be held online as well this year. Harvard is just one of many schools that have made the decision that most, if not all, of its classes would be held remotely in light of the continuing trends in the coronavirus pandemic.
News came from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Monday, however, that international students on F-1 and M-1 visas will not be able to stay in the country if they take a 100% online course load in the Fall. For students who attend a school (such as Harvard) that has announced plans to make all of their classes online, these students will need to either transfer to a school where they can take classes in person or leave the country. More on the breakdown of those new immigration rules can be found on my blogpost: A Breakdown of the New ICE Policy on International Students.
MIT also plans to teach most of its classes online in the fall and has joined Harvard in suing the Trump Administration yesterday in federal court seeking an immediate injunction and temporary restraining order of the new immigration rules. The Massachusetts Attorney General, Maura Healy, has vowed to support Harvard and MIT in combatting the new policy. Harvard and MIT argue that the policy is politically motivated, and primarily enacted to pressure schools to reopen fully without regard to any of the public health risks. Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, stated that “they [the Trump administration] want to force campuses into the position they have to declare themselves open, or at least in a hybrid model.” Harvard President, Lawrence Bacow, vowed that Harvard would fight for their international students which enrich the learning and lives of the entire community.
The lawsuit states that this policy would affect their combined almost 9,000 international students, as well as countless across the nation, and is in clear violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The American Council on Education, the American Association of Community Colleges, the Association of American Universities, the Association of Land Grant Universities, and more than 20 other higher education groups are preparing to file briefs in support of this lawsuit.
Beyond the political and legal reasons, this policy would hurt the economy which is already suffering from the ramifications of the pandemic. According to The Hill, “National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) data has shown that more than 1 million international students attended school in the U.S. during the 2018-2019 academic year, which contributed $41 billion to the economy. They supported around 460,000 jobs in the United States during the same academic year, with the majority of those jobs being in higher education itself.” Most of this money comes by way of tuition, as most international students are full-pay students. The money they use to pay tuition comes from outside of the United States, mainly from family support.
This money is crucial to helping colleges and universities stay open in a time when other areas of financial revenue from sports, research, and enrollment is decreasing. Enrollment is projected to be down roughly 20% across the nation because of the virus, and many schools have already had to suspend all fall sports programming and cut varsity teams.
Check back for more updates on both the new immigration policy and the state of the lawsuit.