CMU joins fight to overturn foreign student rules
Carnegie Mellon University says it is filing an amicus brief supporting a lawsuit by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to block new federal rules that could force international students to leave the U.S. if their instruction goes entirely online this fall.
In doing so, CMU joins other institutions filing amicus briefs, among them Penn State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell and Princeton universities.
“Forcing any international student who is in the United States legally to transfer or leave the country at this unprecedented time is profoundly misguided and painfully cruel,” CMU President Farnam Jahanian told the campus in an email Thursday informing them of the school’s plan. “Furthermore, these and other rash, anti-immigration actions threaten to erode the very foundation of the American university system and its powerful and positive impact on economic prosperity and our national security.”
Mr. Jahanian said a number of institutions and higher education organizations are working collectively to oppose the policy change, announced Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“We are exploring other legal and policy options, as well as other university actions, to mitigate the potential impact of these guidelines,” he said.
Officials at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh — and their counterparts at schools nationwide — have warned the policy is a potentially devastating body blow to colleges and universities, many of which are already reeling from financial impacts of the pandemic and recession and are uncertain about fall enrollment.
More than 1 million international students study and do research in the U.S., and the stakes for Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh are particularly high. This state is the sixth-leading host state with 51,818 students; CMU, Pitt and
Penn State by themselves have more than 20,000 foreign students, according to a November report by the Institute of International Education in New York City.
The ICE policy changes were rolled out as the Trump administration intensified efforts this week to push K-12 schools and colleges to fully reopen, despite increasing cases of COVID-19, which has killed more than 130,000 people in the U.S. The administration has said students need in-person instruction and the economy must reopen.
The policy change would bar students from entering the U.S. for online-only instruction. If their
campus begins the fall with in-person classes but switches to remote learning amid a spike in the virus, those students and their schools would have to either demonstrate they are receiving at least some inperson instruction, transfer to another school or face removal proceedings, officials said.
Harvard and MIT brought their lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE on Wednesday after the policy was announced.
The lawsuit asserts that by all appearances, the federal government is trying to force schools to reinstitute in-person classes, forcing students into densely packed residence halls when the schools say it is in neither students’ health nor educational interests to do so.
“The effect — and perhaps even the goal — is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible,” the 24-page suit alleges.
Officials with ICE have not been available for comment on the policy change, and a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, members of Congress and higher education groups, including the Washington-based American Educational Research Association, stepped up their attacks Thursday on the change.
The policy “serves absolutely no constructive purpose and is manifestly xenophobic,” said the association’s executive director, Felice Levine. “It creates enormous logistical problems for students and universities during a highly uncertain and stressful time, and places students at higher risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19.”
At Penn State, President Eric Barron said the school would do all it can to ensure “this unfortunate directive does not derail the educational ambitions of our international students,” who, he said, are a “welcome, enriching and vital part of our community, belong on our campuses and have every right to finish their degrees.”
He said the university planned to work with the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education (ACE), the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities, and other organizations to urge immediate rescission of the rules. “Doing so is in our country’s best interest and simply the right and just thing to do,” he said.
Letters signed by 99 U.S. senators and House members criticized the change and requested a briefing from Trump administration officials by next week on the rationale.
Lawmakers, in one letter, said they suspect the move is motivated “not by public health considerations, but rather by animus toward immigrants, by a goal of forcing schools to reopen even as COVID-19 cases are rising, and by a desire to create an illusion of normalcy during this unprecedented public health emergency.”
Terry Hartle, a senior vice president with ACE, said the policy change has caused confusion and fear among foreign students, both those already in the U.S. and those deciding their fall plans.
“It certainly sends a signal to international students that they may not be welcome here,” he said.