The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are rescinding guidelines that would have required international students to either transfer schools or leave the US if their colleges go fully online this fall.
This decision was announced Tuesday afternoon, during the hearing on the lawsuit filed by Harvard and MIT against the DHS.
Breaking: The government has agreed to rescind DHS and ICE rules barring international students attending online universities from staying in the U.S., per a hearing this afternoon in Harvard and MIT's lawsuit against the agencies.
— The Harvard Crimson (@thecrimson) July 14, 2020
ICE will revert to its original guidance in March that allowed students taking online classes to remain in the US on F-1 visas.
The guidelines have been met with constant backlash since ICE released them on July 6.
Monday afternoon, the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia announced that it was joining a coalition of 18 Attorney Generals to file a lawsuit against the guidelines.
According to the filing, this lawsuit represents over 370,000 international students across over 1,100 colleges, who contributed approximately $14.5 billion to the economy in 2019.
