180 U.S. colleges, universities join lawsuit opposing Trump administration’s new visa policy for international students
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Some 180 academic institutions in the United States joined the avalanche of opposition to the Trump administration’s controversial visa policy for int’l students, according to an amicus brief document filed to the Massachusetts federal district court and released to the public on Friday.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a new visa policy for international students and this move prompted Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to launch a legal action against it.
The 22-page document issued by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration representing 180 higher education institutions showed a nationwide support for rescinding the guidance.
“ICE’s new policy serves only to severely disrupt international students’ educational attainment, and our country is worse off for it,” said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration in a statement posted on the group’s official website.
“This quasi-international student ban represents another unfortunate assault by the administration against immigrants and higher education,” she added.
The Alliance is composed of over 450 presidents and chancellors of public and private colleges and universities, representing over 5 million students in 41 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.
The extraordinary number of colleges and universities pooling together so quickly is indicative of the serious nature of the opposition to the brash move, academic pundits said.
The ICE announced on Monday that students currently in the United States on F-1 and M-1 visas must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status, if their schools’ classes are entirely online in the fall semester.
The measure also stipulated that those in violation would risk “immigration consequences, including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”
The White House defended the action Wednesday. In academic circles, the decision hit a stone wall.
As of Saturday, hundreds of thousands of signatures have been collected online from supporters of several open letters and petitions that slammed the Trump administration’s decision.
The University of Southern California (USC), where a total of 12,265 international students were enrolled during the 2019-20 academic year with around 7,000 from China, announced on Wednesday it had joined an amicus brief strongly supporting the lawsuit filed by Harvard and MIT.
We are seeing growing rapid acceleration, long overdue, in the U.S.A. in there opposition and challenge, in the decision(s) making processes and direction, on a varied and broadsheet list of matters, coming out and from, the desk of the Oval Office, that currently, is occupied by the incompetent 45th elected President of the United States of America – Donald. J. Trump.
My comments in prior articles, contain opinions, that what we know are legal matters still not answered or in the U.S.A. legal system, still active and proceeding, and pending legal actions directed at Trump, these are a “tip of an iceberg”, what will be seen, when he is removed or voted out of office this coming November.
Trump continues to build matters that will lead to legal needs of ruling and judgement.
America is a Humanitarian Disaster.
It is a Shambles.
This is rich. It was the brick and mortar universities that sought this ban in the first place fearing on-line universities would use it to their advantage. Now that they want to have more remote/on-line or go completely remote/on-line … now they complain.
Universities ban together primarily for the almighty $$$ and their greed, not for humanitarianism, not for American education. Then secondarily is their hatred for Trump who wants accountability.