Seven international graduate students in California filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing guidelines issued this week that would bar them from remaining in the country if they enroll only in online courses this fall.
“The … policy requiring foreign students to attend in person classes, even where their universities have determined that to do so will cost lives and endanger the campus community, in keeping with the judgment of public health experts, treats them as pawns for the president’s politically motivated decision,” attorney Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, the nonprofit law firm that filed the suit, said in a statement.
The students’ lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California, follows another filed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University this week, to which 180 colleges and universities signed an amicus brief in support.
On Monday, the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, announced that international students will not be allowed to remain in the U.S. if they enroll at schools or programs that hold classes entirely online this fall. Those students must depart the country or transfer to an institution holding in-person classes, ICE said.
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