On July 15, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded the controversial July 6th directive that would have required international students to take at least some in-person coursework to stay in the United States. This directive was immediately and passionately protested not only by international students, but by universities and allies across the country.
The initial order was overwhelmingly opposed by those in higher education administration, and by students and alumni of American universities (both those affected by the order directly and those who know students who would be affected). Many university administrations felt that they were being forced to choose between public health and their students’ ability to stay in the country, and vehemently rejected that forced choice.
One of the most powerful displays of protest to the ill-advised directive was a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to block the directive from being put into effect. Over 200 other higher-education institutions announced their support for the lawsuit, and many universities filed their own lawsuits against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the government agency that initially announced the order. In the University of California’s lawsuit announcement, university president Janet Napolitano called the order “mean-spirited, arbitrary and damaging to America.”
As part of the Harvard and MIT lawsuit, declarations of need by students from the respective institutions were submitted into the court record. The declarations served to demonstrate the numerous personal, academic, financial, and professional reasons that many international students have to stay in the United States while studying– and to illustrate that “online” is not necessarily accessible to everyone abroad.
Many of the reasons cited by the students who submitted declarations centered around political, social, and economic instability, time differences between their homes and universities that would be incredibly difficult to navigate, lack of access to reliable internet, and deep social ties to their universities. The declarations demonstrated the significant impact that being forced out of the United States would have both on their education and on their lives at large.
While the Harvard/MIT lawsuit remains open (as do the 8 other lawsuits filed by other universities), it is believed that the substantial response in opposition to the order caused the reversal, and it is unlikely to be reinstated.
President L. Rafael Reif of MIT said it well in his response to the reversal: “These students make us stronger, and we hurt ourselves when we alienate them. This case also made abundantly clear that real lives are at stake in these matters, with the potential for real harm. We need to approach policy making, especially now, with more humanity, more decency — not less. We stand ready to protect our students from any further arbitrary policies. Our nation’s future is at stake.”
CIMA Law Group Blog 