Harvard and MIT have sued the Administration over its announced policy of forcing international students out of the U.S. A copy of the Complaint is available here. The Complaint alleges that ICE has thrown Harvard and MIT— indeed, virtually all of higher education in the U.S.—into chaos by announcing that it was rescinding its COVID-19 exemption for international students, requiring all F-1 students restricted to on-line learning to depart the U.S. and barring such students now outside the U.S. from entering or returning. ICE also ordered schools to submit an “operational change plan” in nine days and, for those schools that have adopted a mix of on-line and in-person classes, to issue new forms to thousands of international students in 30 days.
The Complaint alleges that this unannounced action leaves hundreds of thousands of international students stranded, unable to transfer to universities with on-campus instruction and, in many cases, unable to continue their education. ICE’s action also leaves universities with the untenable choice of either moving ahead with on-line learning or attempting, just weeks before classes resume, to devise an in-person model without causing risks to public health and safety that such a change would entail.