Harvard and MIT sue to block deportation of international students

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a new federal immigration directive that threatens the deportation of international college students who take all of their classes online this fall.

The directive issued Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says all students with F-1 or M-1 student visas in the U.S. must go back to their home countries if their courses are entirely online in the fall, a measure many colleges and universities are adopting due to the spread of the coronavirus.

“As a university with a profound commitment to residential education, we hope and intend to resume full in-person instruction as soon as it is safe and responsible to do so. But, until that time comes, we will not stand by to see our international students’ dreams extinguished by a deeply misguided order. We owe it to them to stand up and to fight — and we will,” Harvard President Larry Bacow said in a Twitter post Wednesday.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Boston seeks a temporary restraining order prohibiting enforcement of the government directive.

An ICE spokesperson told the Miami Herald that the agency could not comment on the matter because of the pending litigation.