Harvard and MIT seek injunction to block ICE bar on foreign students living in the US
- US District Court in Boston set to rule on universities’ challenge to order banning students taking online-only classes from staying in America
- Around 60 other colleges have backed the case, which could affect around 1 million foreign students, including hundreds of thousands from China
A US district court in Boston will on Tuesday hear a lawsuit filed by Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology challenging a decision by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ban international students taking online-only classes from living in the United States.
In the hearing, lawyers for Harvard and MIT will ask Judge Allison D Burroughs to issue an injunction blocking the federal government from enforcing the ICE directive.
The case, which leaves over 1 million international students in limbo, will be heard on Tuesday afternoon local time – one day before the US government requires universities to certify whether they will be fully open, operate on a hybrid model or offer online-only classes.
Almost 60 universities – including Stanford and Ivy League members – are backing Harvard and MIT by filing amicus briefs, The Boston Globe reported.
“ICE’s announcement is policymaking at its worst: cruel, opaque, and arbitrary,” said Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber in a message to the community.
“Princeton will fight vigorously and work relentlessly to support our international students and to defeat this unjust and ill-considered policy.”