“America’s future competitiveness depends on attracting and retaining talented international students,”
(CMR) The Trump administration has backtracked on a policy announced just last where that would have stripped international college students of their U.S. visas if their coursework was entirely online international college students of their U.S. visas if their coursework was entirely online.
The response to the policy was swift with Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) filing a lawsuit almost immediately. Then, Google, Facebook and Twitter joined the lawsuit stating that the move would hurt their businesses.
The attorneys general of at least 18 states, including Massachusetts and California, also sued, charging that the policy was reckless, cruel and senseless. Scores of universities threw their support behind the litigation, along with organizations representing international students.
By this afternoon a federal judge announced that there had been an agreement reached by the parties. The agreement reinstates a policy implemented in March amid the pandemic that gave international students the flexibility to take all their classes online and remain legally in the country with student visas.
The initial guidance, issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would have required foreign students to take at least one in-person class or leave the country. Students who returned to their home countries when schools closed in March would not have been allowed back into the United States if their fall classes were solely online.
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