Harvard And MIT Will Sue ICE Over New Ruling Barring International Students From Online-Only Universities

    Wednesday, July 8, 2020



    Harvard and MIT filed a suit to prevent the U.S. government from enforcing a rule that put international students at great risk.

    Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have both filed a lawsuit in District Court in Boston Wednesday morning. The lawsuit is filed against the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    The lawsuit hopes to establish a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to bar the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from enforcing the federal guidelines that ICE released. These new federal guidelines bar international students from attending colleges and universities offering only online courses from staying in the U.S.

    These guidelines leave international students whose colleges are having only semesters with the choice between:

    1. Transferring to an institution offering in-person instruction
    2. Picking up their lives last minute to move back to their country of citizenship amidst a dangerous pandemic and putting themselves and their family at risk and
    3. facing “immigration consequences including, but not limited to the initiation of removal proceedings.”

    Bacow wrote in an email, “The order came down without notice—its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness. We believe that the ICE order is bad public policy, and we believe that it is illegal.”

    These guidelines were released hours after Harvard announced it would house no more than 40 percent of undergraduates and would hold all college classes through online college in the Fall semester.

    “We will pursue this case vigorously so that our international students—and international students at institutions across the country—can continue their studies without the threat of deportation,” said Bacow in his email.

    ICE’s move has sparked legal action practically instantaneously. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said her office will sue over the guidelines that are “cruel” and “illegal”.

    Bacow and Harvard will not wait for Healey’s suit and will proceed to argue that the guidelines violate the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to consider “important aspects of the problem” in advance of its release, failing to provide a reasonable basis for the policy and failing to adequately notify the public.

    Bacow wrote, “As a university with a profound commitment to residential education, we hope and intend to resume full in-person instruction as soon as it is safe and responsible to do so. But, until that time comes, we will not stand by to see our international students’ dreams extinguished by a deeply misguided order. We owe it to them to stand up and fight—and we will.”