20 ms·

MIT and Harvard file suit against new ICE regulations

365 points by andytgl 6y ago

ISL 6y ago
This appears to be an appropriate response, rather than hacking around the edict by creating pro-forma trivial in-person classes.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  I think both are necessary. ICE is ridiculous, there should be a reasonable exception given the pandemic. I’m embarrassed this is happening in America.
  - letusknow123 6y ago
    So we should ignore laws during times of pandemic? Edit: I can’t seem to reply to the comment below mine this might be due to the negative karma. I will edit this comment as my reply. I was a foreigner on a visa for 14 years in America. A lot of these students are playing the system if ICE is deporting them for things like not studying or breaking the rules of the visa then they are doing their job. I have been in their position and they give you a lot of chances if ICE has to grab you then your doing something really wrong. Edit #2: reply button is back. Edit #3: you can downvote me as much as you want but it doesn’t change facts.
    - nine_zeros 6y ago
      Are laws meant to serve the people or to arrest them to slavery? Is a pandemic not a good enough reason to create exceptions? More importantly, if this administration could create exceptions for tax filing, printing money and stopping evictions, why can't they do it for the health of schools and educators?
      - letusknow123 6y ago
        Laws are meant to serve the people. However I feel there is more to this story. We can’t just tell ICE to ignore the law. The law should be updated if necessary but as of now it’s the law. Pandemic is a good reason for exceptions they can bring this up in immigration court. That’s what it’s for. They should have changed the law way before ICE came don’t you think? Why is it a concern now? I feel like something isn’t being presented.
        nine_zeros 6y ago
        Why don't you apply the same logic to PPP program or eviction moratorium or tax returns? > However I feel there is more to this story. We can’t just tell Treasury and FED to ignore the law. The law should be updated if necessary but as of now it’s the law. Pandemic is a good reason for exceptions they can bring this up in supreme court. That’s what it’s for. > They should have changed the law way before the FED came don’t you think? Why is it a concern now? I feel like something isn’t being presented. Either you are being naive or more likely evasive. We elect lawmakers to make the right choices on our behalf, NOT to rigidly debate laws in emergencies. Selectively applying exceptions in one place while not at another (clearly marked by partisan politics) is NOT representative.
    - runawaybottle 6y ago
      Yes, the international students followed the rules to get a student visa and get accepted into a university. They arranged for everything from admission/acceptance to travel to tuition. The pandemic a calamitous event and the law needs exemptions for this scenario. Edit: To the OP, I know how the system is played too, many immigration cases involve some level of fraud. Regardless, the cruelty factor of the system is that it allows you to commit your life to living here, while at the same time maintaining the threat of the rug being pulled out from right under you. It’s intense, and I’d like to see some of that mitigated. “Immediate deportation” is the scariest thing for anyone without a Green card.
      - letusknow123 6y ago
        I agree it’s very scary but as of now they have to debate their case in immigration court. MIT and Harvard should have made a case for this a long time ago. I also want to know if they are grabbing all student or those they suspect of things like working on their visa. If your like me you understand some people just really game the system.
        UncleMeat 6y ago
        They should have preemptively assumed that the administration would suddenly withdraw the exception due to the pandemic? What? Nobody is gaming the system here. These are normal students who just want to live their lives without being told to pack up and leave with a couple weeks notice. Can you imagine the stress knowing that even if you do literally everything right that some bonehead who hates immigrants can change policy and suddenly make you need to completely rearrange your life?
        letusknow123 6y ago
        The administration told them there would be some kind of action in the fall I believe. So yes they should have prepared breaking rules of the visa is very serious not something they should have been taking lightly because of previous administrations.
    - igneo676 6y ago
      No. Ideally, ICE would've announced this much sooner so that Universities could prepare. Or asked for an exception or the laws changed so that this isn't a problem. Instead they chose to announce this and give universities 9 days to get everything figured out. This is patently immoral for visa holders that would otherwise be allowed to be in the country given any other circumstances (ie not a global pandemic)
      - letusknow123 6y ago
        Can they not continue their education online from their host countries and re-enter the US at a later time?
        kkaranth 6y ago
        The problem is with international students already in the country risking traveling during a pandemic. Or the alternative: risking in-person classes.
        letusknow123 6y ago
        The schools can just provide an in person class once a week and they could wear a mask in class and sit farther away from people. I think a lot of these students either don’t want to go to class or are working on their visa. I’ve been in their situation so I have a doubt ICE is randomly coming for them. If they did nothing wrong they can present their case in immigration court.
        nsm 6y ago
        If you were actually someone who has been through the US immigration process, your lack of empathy is appalling.
        ra7 6y ago
        > I’ve been in their situation You’ve been in their situation of being forced to attend in-person classes during a pandemic?
- Aunche 6y ago
  I think a trivial in-person classes may be an intentional loophole. It stops online-only universities from being a gateway to an easy long-term Visa.
  - addicted 6y ago
    There is no such thing as an easy long term visa for these schools to be a gateway for.
    - Aunche 6y ago
      I meant longer term visas rather than semipermanent visas. You could pay a few thousand a year for an online college to stay in the US wherever you want. I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that, but it's probably easier to work under the table this way when you don't have to worry about being deported.
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      Sure there is or at least significantly easier than without going to a US school. There's a reason all these international students are going to US schools. Go to a US school. Get OPT visa status upon graduation for 3 years. Get a job at a US company using OPT status for your work authorization. Have US company file for a H1B lottery every year until OPT runs out. This whole time you're legally allowed to work in the US.
- lalos 6y ago
  Hacking? You're in for a surprise when you discover what tax attorneys do everyday. If that's the way it was written, it's mostly fair game. That's why it's tough to write effective laws that consider the actual incentives that they are placing instead of what they (whoever is writing) are expecting to happen in their minds.
- milquetoastaf 6y ago
  "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage?" https://medium.com/terminal-1/please-tell-us-about-the-time-you-most-successfully-hacked-some-non-computer-system-to-your-b640e0200b28 https://medium.com/terminal-1/please-tell-us-about-the-time-... http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
- vkou 6y ago
  Malicious compliance is a perfectly appropriate response to a malicious law.
  - ISL 6y ago
    It is a mitigation strategy, but it doesn't fix the problem directly.
    - vkou 6y ago
      No, it's what you fall back on when you can't fix the problem directly.
nocitrek 6y ago
My stance is typically anti-immigration, but I do not support this decision of ICE. I am likely missing big chunk of the story, but could anyone explain the motives behind ICE decision? (without blind hateful virtue-signaling please)
- lordleft 6y ago
  I really do think this is a cynical ploy to induce universities to open up more aggressively than they would like. That is the only reasoning I can come up with.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Yes, it is a classic wedge. Try to force your opponents into an unpleasant choice, either of which is OK with you. Have to hand it to the anti-freedom of movement/association folks - this was a fairly clever one.
  - magicnubs 6y ago
    What's the end game in this scenario? It feels like political suicide if it causes coronavirus deaths to spike even more before November, as people already don't care for how the administration has handled it. Although, since it's mostly young people, maybe cases would spike, but deaths wouldn't, making the virus seem less deadly. But maybe deaths are expected to spike either way, so better to both increase cases (with relatively fewer deaths making it seem less deadly, as mentioned above) and also spur the economy somewhat? Or maybe it's pure and simply just a way to energize the base by "scoring a point against the other team", as it is seen as bringing defiant liberal institutions to heel?
    - magicnubs 6y ago
      (continued as I accidently submitted my comment too early) Or is it simply about making it seem like things have returned to normal? "See business are reopening, schools are reopening, the world is back to the way it was".
stefap2 6y ago
Regardless of the regulation. What is the difference of being in the US or anywhere else if you can't go on campus and only work /study from home. The quality of learning is low in both cases.
- 3001 6y ago
  Timezone, internships and cultural exchange.Also some international students are actually on merit based scholarship.Internet connectivity is also really bad in most third world countries. I can go on and on.
  - WanderPanda 6y ago
    Can confirm, internet connectivity is really bad in many parts of Germany
- letmeinhere 6y ago
  For one, it's unreasonable to assume that all of these students have home environments conducive to do high-def teleconferencing on American time zones.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Would that not also apply to domestic students, even the international students as America has very very spotty broadband access even in cities one section may have great service and go 2 streets over and you get crap... I know locally that has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the local schools, dealing with students that did not have good internet.
    - 3001 6y ago
      Very spotty is different from non-existent.
- the_svd_doctor 6y ago
  Timezones, connectivity, can’t come back (embassies are all closed) even if it reopens, still numerous travel bans, unsafe travel... Also many couldn’t get their funding (TA/RA) or scholarship without being in the US
ben7799 6y ago
It's incredibly unfair for the the administration to target international students like this. However Harvard and MIT aren't all about caring about their international students here. They are also thinking heavily about the money they might be losing. International students usually pay a much higher effective tuition rate. The higher the % of international students the school takes in the more money they take in. If these schools had to replace international students with domestic ones (even if they could) they wouldn't be able to get away with selecting only the highest paying students. I'm from Boston, we have an incredibly high number of international students, and a lot of the interest in keeping them is about getting their money. The Boston Globe estimates they are worth $3.6 billion dollars to the area... lots of money, lots of tuition, lots of apartment rentals, lots of bar & restaurant revenue.
- dekhn 6y ago
  Beyond the economic value of international students, Harvard and MIT are completely dependent on these sources of cheap, intelligent labor. There isn't enough domestic supply of top students to keep top labs running and publishing state of the art research.
  - PragmaticPulp 6y ago
    > There isn't enough domestic supply of top students to keep top labs running and publishing state of the art research. I have a hard time believing that when Harvard rejects 19 out of every 20 applicants.
    - krastanov 6y ago
      I think they are talking about graduate students (the ones actually doing research work) not undergraduates.
    - dekhn 6y ago
      I'm talking about graduate programs at world-class research universities.
  - 6y ago
umanwizard 6y ago
I am skeptical of shutdowns as a policy, and if I worked in a strategic role at a university, I would push for reopening in person. However, the administration using federal visa policy as a bludgeon to get universities to implement their preferred policies (even policies that I personally agree with) makes me really uneasy.
bawana 6y ago
I suppose MIT and HArvard could allow students on campus but locked into their dorm rooms. They could have the bathroom police unlock doors individually so the kids could take showers, etc. Then they could have the cafeteria deliver meals the same way prisoners are fed in their cells. Trump could extend this edict to the workplace as well - any VISA holders working remotely get deported. Somewhere in the mists of history I remember isolationism not working out too well for us. I wonder why we are going back there?
credit_guy 6y ago
The actual complaint is here: http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708-Harvard-MIT-Complaint-Injunctive-Relief.pdf http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708... My very short summary: - there is a rule in place whereby international students who don't take most classes in person will lose their visa status - this rule was suspended by ICE on March 13 for the duration of the Covid19 emergency - ICE now has changed their mind for the Fall semester - the core part of the complaint is in paragraph 10. It has 2 parts: the ICE u-turn is "arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion", and it did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act. Now, IANAL, but here's my take: for the first part of the complaint, it's very likely ICE will be able to produce some "analysis" so they can claim their decision was not arbitrary and capricious, but rather made after careful consideration. The second part of the complaint has probably better odds of success. If Harvard and MIT can pinpoint the exact part of the Administrative Procedure Act that ICE did not follow, a judge could issue the injunction. Just recently the Supreme Court overturned Trump administration's decision to revoke DACA based on this Administrative Procedure Act. In the end though, even if this injunction is issued, it may take months, and it may arrive too late to be of any help for the international students who will lose their visa. It would be fantastic though if someone with legal expertise were to opine on this in this forum.
- ISL 6y ago
  I expect a temporary injunction while the case proceeds.
- WillPostForFood 6y ago
  >there is a rule in place whereby international students who don't take most classes in person will lose their visa status It doesn't say you can't take most classes online, it says you can't take all classes online. In a hybrid model, it gets a little grey, but nothing specifically says you can't take most classes online. >Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools adopting a hybrid model—that is, a mixture of online and in person classes—will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online. These schools must certify to SEVP, through the Form I-20, “Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status,” certifying that the program is not entirely online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load this semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online classes required to make normal progress in their degree program. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during#wcm-survey-target-id https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-ex...
chvid 6y ago
This link was posted here yesterday: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-students-in-the-us-by-country-of-origin/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-stu... 370.000 students from China, 200.000 from India, 52.000 from South Korea. This policy change affects hundreds of thousands students and must generate a massive loss in economic terms.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >This policy change affects hundreds of thousands students and must generate a massive loss in economic terms. It certainly does. But it's worth keeping in mind that you only have to drive about an hour north or west of either campus for "MIT/Hardvard, Boston area landlords and businesses lose out on billions of dollars from foreign students" to flip from bad news to good news. Look at the politics of this and where ICEs actions stand on the spectrum of immigration, foreign relations and COVID (and probably a couple other issues that I'm not thinking of) and it all makes sense. The administration will win brownie points among those people who already support it with this policy from the get go. This policy also pits the landlords and business owners in the college towns (who have a big interest in the school's opening, but don't have any love for the administration) against the colleges.
  - christiansakai 6y ago
    Can you elaborate more?
    - hef19898 6y ago
      This measure restricts immigration, a declared goal of Trumps sdministration. And it basically tries to force Universities to open for the fall semester. Again something the administration wants. It only works, so, if t holds up in court. There, Trumps administration doesn't have the best track record.
      - christiansakai 6y ago
sytelus 6y ago
The lawsuit will be strong if they say online classes are temporary in order to not to violate governor order and will be in-person as soon as governor allows. I don’t see any reason ICE can argue against that.
lgleason 6y ago
I'm sure this will be downvoted into oblivion, but short of these regulations being illegal they are actually in the national interest IMHO. From a national security standpoint the universities have been a big trojan horse. At many state schools international students are also nothing but large cash cows and a source for cheap research labor. For years I was a pro-education person, but most of the US institutions have been hijacked by political activists who have significantly watered down the curriculums. We need a massive reset of the entire system and significantly limiting foreign students needs to be part of that.
- mattwad 6y ago
  They would be great except the problem is once you're done with school, it can be incredibly hard to stay in the US. So we end up losing the people we help train. Fixing it by reducing these students entirely is going in the wrong direction.
  - lgleason 6y ago
    The ones that stay are also national security risks in some instances. At some point, and feel free to call me crazy for saying this, but wouldn't it make sense for US educational institutions to be primarily focused on educating US citizens... in the same way that a UK, French, South African, Chinese etc. university should be focused on educating their respective citizens first and foremost? It's one thing to let a very select group of foreign students in who are truly exceptional, but that is not what is happening today. Instead most are letting anybody in who is willing to pay the money. So it's really just another back door into the US labor market and companies wanting cheap labor love having a larger supply of that.
    - chrchang523 6y ago
      I'd argue that the US actually has a national security interest in facilitating India's development, in a way that is obviously not true for China at this point.
    - greenonions 6y ago
xamuel 6y ago
I'm sure this will be super unpopular, but I think universities are on the wrong side here. First: If the classes are online anyway, then there's no reason students need to be on U.S. soil to take them. If the schools have policies requiring the students to be on U.S. soil, the schools should waive those policies. Second: It's subjective whether COVID is still an "emergency". We've been locked down for many months now, there is nothing "emergent" about the situation any more. When your car crashes, that's an emergency. Three months later when you're having trouble getting to work because of your car being wrecked, that is no longer an emergency. It still sucks, but it isn't an emergency any more at that point. Granted, though, it would have been better if ICE had given the schools more advance notice.
- p0llard 6y ago
  One big issue here is that F-1 students must maintain residency in order to be eligible for OPT. This is secondary to the fact that if you're a PhD student on an F-1, you literally live in the US; you aren't just popping over for a few weeks now and then. The current situation basically forces people who have lived in the US for nearly 10 years to suddenly leave the country.
  - xamuel 6y ago
    Thanks for pointing out Optional Practical Training (OPT), that's a good point. That might be a good thing for the feds to waive (once things go back to normal). On the second point, usually PhD students with that much seniority aren't taking a lot of regular classes anyway; by 10 years, you should definitely be post-candidacy. By that point you should be working on your dissertation and "classes" should mostly consist of 1-on-1s with your advisor.
    - p0llard 6y ago
      > by 10 years, you should definitely be post-candidacy. Yes sure, 10 years was perhaps a stretch. But anyone who has lived in the US pretty much continuously for 5 or 6 years (undergrad plus the first couple of years of grad school, or possibly at the end of an MIT MEng, which is often 4+2) is likely as integrated as they're ever going to be at that point. 5 years or 10 years doesn't really make that much of a difference: it's still going to have a huge impact on students who consider the US their home.
montenegrohugo 6y ago
Here's the email I got from Faculty this morning: Dear members of the FAS community, Shortly after Monday’s announcement about our plans for the fall semester, we learned that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new regulations that imperil the lives and academic progress of our international students and scholars. These new guidelines directly undermine the careful planning and approach we have taken for fall, specifically our plans to deliver all graduate and undergraduate instruction online. This plan was put forth to reconcile the health and safety needs of our community and the vitality of our academic mission, including accounting for the needs of our diverse, global community of students and scholars who face a host of limitations and complications brought about by the pandemic. This reckless reversal by ICE hurts our students and it hurts us as an institution. The FAS is an international community and that is a source of pride and inspiration. That we bring together the voices and perspectives of some of the brightest minds from across the world is fundamental to our intellectual strength and ambitions and must be protected. While there is still much we don’t know, we are working quickly to respond to the needs of our international students and scholars impacted by this news. To that end, early this morning, President Bacow announced that Harvard, together with MIT, has filed pleadings in the US District Court in Boston to seek a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of this order. In doing so, we continue to be guided by our core principles to protect our academic enterprise and preserve access and affordability for all our students. The new ICE order is a direct threat to that institutional imperative. But we are committed to doing all we can to enable our students and scholars to continue their studies without further disruption to their lives and academic progress in an already uncertain and challenging time. Many of you have reached out to express your concern about these new regulations and what they will mean for our students. I share your deep distress over this new order, and I assure you that the FAS and the University are working tirelessly to fight on behalf of our international students and scholars. We will explore all avenues and exhaust all options to chart a path forward that protects their place as valued members of the FAS community. Sincerely, Claudine It's the most strongly worded email I've ever seen from Harvard. It seems like they believe that the Trump Administration is trying to manipulate them into opening prematurely, and that they are very cognizant of this.
- p0llard 6y ago
ghufran_syed 6y ago
I'd hate to be "forced" to return to my home country, but why can't these students just study online back in their own country, then come back for in-person classes sometime next year once covid is under control? The reason for excluding all-online classes is that historically it's been associated with much greater immigration fraud. If this really becomes a big issue for students, it's pretty trivial for the universities to turn their online classes into "hybrid" classes that require people to physically come to campus in a safe way - e.g. "residency course requirement: at some point in the week, every week you must come into the university and sign the attendance log website from a device logged into the campus wifi" .
bg24 6y ago
Right decision and all universities should follow suit to help the students. Imagine us being students and having to go through the pain, while Covid is all over the map.
GhostVII 6y ago
It sounds like these ICE regulations are not new, they are just removing some temporary exemptions they put in to place due to COVID. So the suit is against the removal of this exemption, there are no new restrictions in place that did not exist before COVID.
vturner 6y ago
MIT and Harvard being rather dishonest here. Seems like this is reverting back to what was before? "Due to COVID-19, SEVP instituted a temporary exemption regarding online courses for the spring and summer semesters. This policy permitted nonimmigrant students to take more online courses than normally permitted by federal regulation to maintain their nonimmigrant status during the COVID-19 emergency."
- emiliobumachar 6y ago
  I don't think they're being dishonest. This is indeed reverting back to what was before. The thing is, students who normally study onsite are still studying remotely due to the pandemic. The original law presumably was targeted at permanently remote classes. One can of course argue whether the exception is still reasonable, xamuel made a fair case that it's not. But the opposite case really does not seem dishonest.
- oblio 6y ago
  > COVID-19 emergency Where I'm standing, the US is definitely still in a Covid-19 emergency...
swiley 6y ago
Undoing the mess that was H1B was probably a good thing (provided an alternative path for professionals to immigrate without forcing them into indentured servitude becomes available) but this just seems stupid. The only good thing about is that it could change the way universities think about tuition? I don’t even understand the argument for why the students are being sent home. It spreads the virus around (people crossing borders is pretty bad for that) and if they were allowed here in the first place why are they being sent home now?
jrk 6y ago
Lots of the comments are talking about this as an MIT/Harvard issue. To be clear, MIT and Harvard are the first to file suit, but this radical policy by ICE dramatically affects every college and university, and every international student, in the country. And the suit seeks to strike down the policy altogether, not get an exemption for these two schools. This is not about Harvard and MIT at all, except insofar as they wound up being the ones with the position and deep pockets to most quickly file a strong suit to stop it.
sushshshsh 6y ago
Imagine playing politics over people's education and location of current residence. What a world.
beepboopbeep 6y ago
I firmly believe this is being done to damage the reputation of the USA as an immigrant friendly country in order to induce a major brain drain while also stemming the flow of Chinese students away from the mainland.
- exolymph 6y ago
  > in order to induce a major brain drain What is the motivation for desiring this, in your view?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
coreai 6y ago
The decision of ICE essentially was to not change anything. A student on F1 is only permitted to take certain number of online classes and must maintain his status with in person classes. The change to online classes means this affects ones status and the ICE notice meant they will not make any changes to these rules even in this situation. What people are saying is that this affects ones work status if he leaves the US post study but ideally a student is a student not seeking work or immigration into the US especially given that the H1B is suspended and OPT is not work it’s training. If the university says class is online then it means there is no reason for a student to live in the US. People confuse students with long term immigration even if that maybe the intention of the student. They are just students who are paying tuition and living in the US as far as anyone is concerned.
- kevingadd 6y ago
  There was previously an exemption put in place, they're suspending it.
- foepys 6y ago
  Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US afterwards? I was always under impression that this was the main goal of those programs. Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country, and hope for them stay and contribute to the economy.
  - taylodl 6y ago
    That used to be the case but I'm not so sure the current regime is down for that - at least they're not acting like it.
  - lutorm 6y ago
    Absolutely not. Maybe the US should, but according to the rules, a student visa is "nonimmigrant intent" and expressing the desire to stay in the US after your studies are over may in fact be grounds for denial of a visa because they may think you're going to overstay.
  - 6y ago
viscountchocula 6y ago
Serious question: can the schools just have a required course that's like, walk around campus for an hour with a mask and describe your feelings? Pass/fail, 1 credit.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dharmab 6y ago
  Normally, international students cannot take more than 3 credits of online classes to keep their visas. This rule was temporarily suspended in March, but is being reverted by ICE while the schools are not ready to fully reopen.
  - yoden 6y ago
    No it's not. They're still allowing an exception that allows any number of online classes. They're just requiring at least one in-person credit, and for the university to say it is at least partially open.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Some students can't return for legal, practical or health reasons until covid is done (other can but probably shouldn't for personal reasons). So they lose their visa and won't be able to finish their degree when things do reopen.
Alex3917 6y ago
During the Vietnam war, colleges stopped grading so that it was impossible for anyone to fail out and get drafted. Why can't these colleges just create in-person classes that meet once a semester with optional attendance?
- tanilama 6y ago
  I mean probably the safety of the staff?
- Ar-Curunir 6y ago
  ICE is evil, not stupid; they'll probably rule that as invalid.
- evanb 6y ago
  The regulations explicitly mention and close this loophole. To count as in-person it can't just be for people who need help with their visa, and attendance can't be optional or sporadic.
- SkyBelow 6y ago
  If you are going to go big, go big. In person class with no attendance required. All projects are submitted to an online portal, like which already happens in in person classes.
- Daishiman 6y ago
  This is actually happening in Berkeley.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  They could try. But this completely misunderstands how scary it is to be trying to follow the rules as somebody on a visa. "Let me try this weird loophole and hope that no agent comes to me and says 'get out of the country by the end of the week' for violating the spirit of the law" is not a compelling option. US Immigration is already a Kafkaesque nightmare of confusion and uncertainty. Creating the equivalent of a green card marriage in an almost completely transparent and obvious manner isn't going to put people at ease.
eric_b 6y ago
I spent 45 minutes this morning trying to get to the bottom of this whole thing - as usual there is more nuance to this than presented. - For as far back as I could find, students that wanted to qualify for a student visa to study in the US could take at most one online course per semester. The rest of the coursework had to be in-person. - Starting in the spring of this year, the SEVP program (part of ICE) created exemptions so students could continue to stay in the US even though universities had moved entirely online. These exemptions were for Spring and Summer and universities were awaiting the rules for Fall. - As of Monday, they are changing the exemptions. They are allowing any number of online classes, but with the caveat you have to have at least one in-person class. - If you are already in the US you have to leave if your university is online-only. [This is the part that feels punitive and particularly onerous to me] What is interesting to me is the framing of this. The new exemptions are still more flexible than the pre-existing student visa policy (which has been around through both Democratic and Republican administrations as far as I can tell). So on the one hand it's actually an improvement. On the other hand I think most of these universities were hoping the full exemption would continue as COVID is still very much a thing.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- skrowl 6y ago
  This is important. The media is trying to spin this as something new this administration is doing. It's sad that they're so biased against this administration to the point where they create a false narrative to try to blame Trump for everything. You literally could not have a student visa and attend classes 100% online in ANY of Obama's 8 years in office. Period. It's not a new policy, it's just going back to the way it was before the temporary covid-19 exemptions were put in place. It's not really a big news story when you get down to the fact and past the "TRUMP BAD!" headline.
  - asciident 6y ago
    The difference is a lot of universities are remote only, due to being more concerned about safety. So it's simply not possible for the students to take in-person courses. This was not the case during Obama's years.
Consultant32452 6y ago
I think this is a first step in kicking out Chinese students. If you're from France, South Korea, Nigeria, etc. you'll be invited back soon enough. This is not a judgement on that plan, just a prediction.
- oblio 6y ago
  Why do you think that?
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    There has been multiple stories in the news recently about crackdowns on Chinese "spies" in the universities. I'm using the word spy loosely there, that's not the word that has been in the news. They talk about it more in the sense of secretly getting funding from China and not claiming it or whatever. My perception is that the belief is that this is a major avenue through which US tech is "stolen". The administration recently hinted that they will be blocking Chinese apps such as TikTok from being used in the US. The administration also hinted at breaking the currency peg to the dollar. A cold war is ongoing.
hello_1234 6y ago
This is cruel and wicked. Hopefully the courts stop this madness.
rexreed 6y ago
Higher education is due for a massive price correction. The cost of education has outstripped market ability and the movement to online while still asking top dollar tuition is going to make those education institutions increasingly pressured. Going online increases international ability to compete for students as well as professors, and this will also increase pressure on tuition pricing. Higher ed tuition pricing is bound for a massive correction.
quantum_state 6y ago
It looks like ICE has no better things to do in this pandemic...
sqrt 6y ago
Northeastern University (in Boston) has announced that they're joining MIT and Harvard's lawsuit: https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297 https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297

365 points by andytgl 6y ago

ISL 6y ago

This appears to be an appropriate response, rather than hacking around the edict by creating pro-forma trivial in-person classes.

runawaybottle 6y ago
I think both are necessary. ICE is ridiculous, there should be a reasonable exception given the pandemic. I’m embarrassed this is happening in America.
- letusknow123 6y ago
  So we should ignore laws during times of pandemic? Edit: I can’t seem to reply to the comment below mine this might be due to the negative karma. I will edit this comment as my reply. I was a foreigner on a visa for 14 years in America. A lot of these students are playing the system if ICE is deporting them for things like not studying or breaking the rules of the visa then they are doing their job. I have been in their position and they give you a lot of chances if ICE has to grab you then your doing something really wrong. Edit #2: reply button is back. Edit #3: you can downvote me as much as you want but it doesn’t change facts.
  - nine_zeros 6y ago
    Are laws meant to serve the people or to arrest them to slavery? Is a pandemic not a good enough reason to create exceptions? More importantly, if this administration could create exceptions for tax filing, printing money and stopping evictions, why can't they do it for the health of schools and educators?
    - letusknow123 6y ago
      Laws are meant to serve the people. However I feel there is more to this story. We can’t just tell ICE to ignore the law. The law should be updated if necessary but as of now it’s the law. Pandemic is a good reason for exceptions they can bring this up in immigration court. That’s what it’s for. They should have changed the law way before ICE came don’t you think? Why is it a concern now? I feel like something isn’t being presented.
      - nine_zeros 6y ago
        Why don't you apply the same logic to PPP program or eviction moratorium or tax returns? > However I feel there is more to this story. We can’t just tell Treasury and FED to ignore the law. The law should be updated if necessary but as of now it’s the law. Pandemic is a good reason for exceptions they can bring this up in supreme court. That’s what it’s for. > They should have changed the law way before the FED came don’t you think? Why is it a concern now? I feel like something isn’t being presented. Either you are being naive or more likely evasive. We elect lawmakers to make the right choices on our behalf, NOT to rigidly debate laws in emergencies. Selectively applying exceptions in one place while not at another (clearly marked by partisan politics) is NOT representative.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    Yes, the international students followed the rules to get a student visa and get accepted into a university. They arranged for everything from admission/acceptance to travel to tuition. The pandemic a calamitous event and the law needs exemptions for this scenario. Edit: To the OP, I know how the system is played too, many immigration cases involve some level of fraud. Regardless, the cruelty factor of the system is that it allows you to commit your life to living here, while at the same time maintaining the threat of the rug being pulled out from right under you. It’s intense, and I’d like to see some of that mitigated. “Immediate deportation” is the scariest thing for anyone without a Green card.
    - letusknow123 6y ago
      I agree it’s very scary but as of now they have to debate their case in immigration court. MIT and Harvard should have made a case for this a long time ago. I also want to know if they are grabbing all student or those they suspect of things like working on their visa. If your like me you understand some people just really game the system.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        They should have preemptively assumed that the administration would suddenly withdraw the exception due to the pandemic? What? Nobody is gaming the system here. These are normal students who just want to live their lives without being told to pack up and leave with a couple weeks notice. Can you imagine the stress knowing that even if you do literally everything right that some bonehead who hates immigrants can change policy and suddenly make you need to completely rearrange your life?
        letusknow123 6y ago
        The administration told them there would be some kind of action in the fall I believe. So yes they should have prepared breaking rules of the visa is very serious not something they should have been taking lightly because of previous administrations.
  - igneo676 6y ago
    No. Ideally, ICE would've announced this much sooner so that Universities could prepare. Or asked for an exception or the laws changed so that this isn't a problem. Instead they chose to announce this and give universities 9 days to get everything figured out. This is patently immoral for visa holders that would otherwise be allowed to be in the country given any other circumstances (ie not a global pandemic)
    - letusknow123 6y ago
      Can they not continue their education online from their host countries and re-enter the US at a later time?
      - kkaranth 6y ago
        The problem is with international students already in the country risking traveling during a pandemic. Or the alternative: risking in-person classes.
        letusknow123 6y ago
        The schools can just provide an in person class once a week and they could wear a mask in class and sit farther away from people. I think a lot of these students either don’t want to go to class or are working on their visa. I’ve been in their situation so I have a doubt ICE is randomly coming for them. If they did nothing wrong they can present their case in immigration court.
        nsm 6y ago
        If you were actually someone who has been through the US immigration process, your lack of empathy is appalling.
        ra7 6y ago
        > I’ve been in their situation You’ve been in their situation of being forced to attend in-person classes during a pandemic?
Aunche 6y ago
I think a trivial in-person classes may be an intentional loophole. It stops online-only universities from being a gateway to an easy long-term Visa.
- addicted 6y ago
  There is no such thing as an easy long term visa for these schools to be a gateway for.
  - Aunche 6y ago
    I meant longer term visas rather than semipermanent visas. You could pay a few thousand a year for an online college to stay in the US wherever you want. I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that, but it's probably easier to work under the table this way when you don't have to worry about being deported.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    Sure there is or at least significantly easier than without going to a US school. There's a reason all these international students are going to US schools. Go to a US school. Get OPT visa status upon graduation for 3 years. Get a job at a US company using OPT status for your work authorization. Have US company file for a H1B lottery every year until OPT runs out. This whole time you're legally allowed to work in the US.
lalos 6y ago
Hacking? You're in for a surprise when you discover what tax attorneys do everyday. If that's the way it was written, it's mostly fair game. That's why it's tough to write effective laws that consider the actual incentives that they are placing instead of what they (whoever is writing) are expecting to happen in their minds.
milquetoastaf 6y ago
"Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage?" https://medium.com/terminal-1/please-tell-us-about-the-time-you-most-successfully-hacked-some-non-computer-system-to-your-b640e0200b28 https://medium.com/terminal-1/please-tell-us-about-the-time-... http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html
vkou 6y ago
Malicious compliance is a perfectly appropriate response to a malicious law.
- ISL 6y ago
  It is a mitigation strategy, but it doesn't fix the problem directly.
  - vkou 6y ago
    No, it's what you fall back on when you can't fix the problem directly.

nocitrek 6y ago

My stance is typically anti-immigration, but I do not support this decision of ICE. I am likely missing big chunk of the story, but could anyone explain the motives behind ICE decision? (without blind hateful virtue-signaling please)

lordleft 6y ago
I really do think this is a cynical ploy to induce universities to open up more aggressively than they would like. That is the only reasoning I can come up with.
- _jal 6y ago
  Yes, it is a classic wedge. Try to force your opponents into an unpleasant choice, either of which is OK with you. Have to hand it to the anti-freedom of movement/association folks - this was a fairly clever one.
- magicnubs 6y ago
  What's the end game in this scenario? It feels like political suicide if it causes coronavirus deaths to spike even more before November, as people already don't care for how the administration has handled it. Although, since it's mostly young people, maybe cases would spike, but deaths wouldn't, making the virus seem less deadly. But maybe deaths are expected to spike either way, so better to both increase cases (with relatively fewer deaths making it seem less deadly, as mentioned above) and also spur the economy somewhat? Or maybe it's pure and simply just a way to energize the base by "scoring a point against the other team", as it is seen as bringing defiant liberal institutions to heel?
  - magicnubs 6y ago
    (continued as I accidently submitted my comment too early) Or is it simply about making it seem like things have returned to normal? "See business are reopening, schools are reopening, the world is back to the way it was".

stefap2 6y ago

Regardless of the regulation. What is the difference of being in the US or anywhere else if you can't go on campus and only work /study from home. The quality of learning is low in both cases.

3001 6y ago
Timezone, internships and cultural exchange.Also some international students are actually on merit based scholarship.Internet connectivity is also really bad in most third world countries. I can go on and on.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  Can confirm, internet connectivity is really bad in many parts of Germany
letmeinhere 6y ago
For one, it's unreasonable to assume that all of these students have home environments conducive to do high-def teleconferencing on American time zones.
- syshum 6y ago
  Would that not also apply to domestic students, even the international students as America has very very spotty broadband access even in cities one section may have great service and go 2 streets over and you get crap... I know locally that has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the local schools, dealing with students that did not have good internet.
  - 3001 6y ago
    Very spotty is different from non-existent.
the_svd_doctor 6y ago
Timezones, connectivity, can’t come back (embassies are all closed) even if it reopens, still numerous travel bans, unsafe travel... Also many couldn’t get their funding (TA/RA) or scholarship without being in the US

ben7799 6y ago

It's incredibly unfair for the the administration to target international students like this. However Harvard and MIT aren't all about caring about their international students here. They are also thinking heavily about the money they might be losing. International students usually pay a much higher effective tuition rate. The higher the % of international students the school takes in the more money they take in. If these schools had to replace international students with domestic ones (even if they could) they wouldn't be able to get away with selecting only the highest paying students. I'm from Boston, we have an incredibly high number of international students, and a lot of the interest in keeping them is about getting their money. The Boston Globe estimates they are worth $3.6 billion dollars to the area... lots of money, lots of tuition, lots of apartment rentals, lots of bar & restaurant revenue.

dekhn 6y ago
Beyond the economic value of international students, Harvard and MIT are completely dependent on these sources of cheap, intelligent labor. There isn't enough domestic supply of top students to keep top labs running and publishing state of the art research.
- PragmaticPulp 6y ago
  > There isn't enough domestic supply of top students to keep top labs running and publishing state of the art research. I have a hard time believing that when Harvard rejects 19 out of every 20 applicants.
  - krastanov 6y ago
    I think they are talking about graduate students (the ones actually doing research work) not undergraduates.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    I'm talking about graduate programs at world-class research universities.
- 6y ago

umanwizard 6y ago

I am skeptical of shutdowns as a policy, and if I worked in a strategic role at a university, I would push for reopening in person. However, the administration using federal visa policy as a bludgeon to get universities to implement their preferred policies (even policies that I personally agree with) makes me really uneasy.

bawana 6y ago

I suppose MIT and HArvard could allow students on campus but locked into their dorm rooms. They could have the bathroom police unlock doors individually so the kids could take showers, etc. Then they could have the cafeteria deliver meals the same way prisoners are fed in their cells. Trump could extend this edict to the workplace as well - any VISA holders working remotely get deported. Somewhere in the mists of history I remember isolationism not working out too well for us. I wonder why we are going back there?

credit_guy 6y ago

The actual complaint is here: http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708-Harvard-MIT-Complaint-Injunctive-Relief.pdf http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708... My very short summary: - there is a rule in place whereby international students who don't take most classes in person will lose their visa status - this rule was suspended by ICE on March 13 for the duration of the Covid19 emergency - ICE now has changed their mind for the Fall semester - the core part of the complaint is in paragraph 10. It has 2 parts: the ICE u-turn is "arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion", and it did not follow the Administrative Procedure Act. Now, IANAL, but here's my take: for the first part of the complaint, it's very likely ICE will be able to produce some "analysis" so they can claim their decision was not arbitrary and capricious, but rather made after careful consideration. The second part of the complaint has probably better odds of success. If Harvard and MIT can pinpoint the exact part of the Administrative Procedure Act that ICE did not follow, a judge could issue the injunction. Just recently the Supreme Court overturned Trump administration's decision to revoke DACA based on this Administrative Procedure Act. In the end though, even if this injunction is issued, it may take months, and it may arrive too late to be of any help for the international students who will lose their visa. It would be fantastic though if someone with legal expertise were to opine on this in this forum.

ISL 6y ago
I expect a temporary injunction while the case proceeds.
WillPostForFood 6y ago
>there is a rule in place whereby international students who don't take most classes in person will lose their visa status It doesn't say you can't take most classes online, it says you can't take all classes online. In a hybrid model, it gets a little grey, but nothing specifically says you can't take most classes online. >Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools adopting a hybrid model—that is, a mixture of online and in person classes—will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online. These schools must certify to SEVP, through the Form I-20, “Certificate of Eligibility for Nonimmigrant Student Status,” certifying that the program is not entirely online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load this semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online classes required to make normal progress in their degree program. https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-exemptions-nonimmigrant-students-taking-online-courses-during#wcm-survey-target-id https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/sevp-modifies-temporary-ex...

chvid 6y ago

This link was posted here yesterday: https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-students-in-the-us-by-country-of-origin/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-stu... 370.000 students from China, 200.000 from India, 52.000 from South Korea. This policy change affects hundreds of thousands students and must generate a massive loss in economic terms.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>This policy change affects hundreds of thousands students and must generate a massive loss in economic terms. It certainly does. But it's worth keeping in mind that you only have to drive about an hour north or west of either campus for "MIT/Hardvard, Boston area landlords and businesses lose out on billions of dollars from foreign students" to flip from bad news to good news. Look at the politics of this and where ICEs actions stand on the spectrum of immigration, foreign relations and COVID (and probably a couple other issues that I'm not thinking of) and it all makes sense. The administration will win brownie points among those people who already support it with this policy from the get go. This policy also pits the landlords and business owners in the college towns (who have a big interest in the school's opening, but don't have any love for the administration) against the colleges.
- christiansakai 6y ago
  Can you elaborate more?
  - hef19898 6y ago
    This measure restricts immigration, a declared goal of Trumps sdministration. And it basically tries to force Universities to open for the fall semester. Again something the administration wants. It only works, so, if t holds up in court. There, Trumps administration doesn't have the best track record.
    - christiansakai 6y ago

sytelus 6y ago

The lawsuit will be strong if they say online classes are temporary in order to not to violate governor order and will be in-person as soon as governor allows. I don’t see any reason ICE can argue against that.

lgleason 6y ago

I'm sure this will be downvoted into oblivion, but short of these regulations being illegal they are actually in the national interest IMHO. From a national security standpoint the universities have been a big trojan horse. At many state schools international students are also nothing but large cash cows and a source for cheap research labor. For years I was a pro-education person, but most of the US institutions have been hijacked by political activists who have significantly watered down the curriculums. We need a massive reset of the entire system and significantly limiting foreign students needs to be part of that.

mattwad 6y ago
They would be great except the problem is once you're done with school, it can be incredibly hard to stay in the US. So we end up losing the people we help train. Fixing it by reducing these students entirely is going in the wrong direction.
- lgleason 6y ago
  The ones that stay are also national security risks in some instances. At some point, and feel free to call me crazy for saying this, but wouldn't it make sense for US educational institutions to be primarily focused on educating US citizens... in the same way that a UK, French, South African, Chinese etc. university should be focused on educating their respective citizens first and foremost? It's one thing to let a very select group of foreign students in who are truly exceptional, but that is not what is happening today. Instead most are letting anybody in who is willing to pay the money. So it's really just another back door into the US labor market and companies wanting cheap labor love having a larger supply of that.
  - chrchang523 6y ago
    I'd argue that the US actually has a national security interest in facilitating India's development, in a way that is obviously not true for China at this point.
  - greenonions 6y ago

xamuel 6y ago

I'm sure this will be super unpopular, but I think universities are on the wrong side here. First: If the classes are online anyway, then there's no reason students need to be on U.S. soil to take them. If the schools have policies requiring the students to be on U.S. soil, the schools should waive those policies. Second: It's subjective whether COVID is still an "emergency". We've been locked down for many months now, there is nothing "emergent" about the situation any more. When your car crashes, that's an emergency. Three months later when you're having trouble getting to work because of your car being wrecked, that is no longer an emergency. It still sucks, but it isn't an emergency any more at that point. Granted, though, it would have been better if ICE had given the schools more advance notice.

p0llard 6y ago
One big issue here is that F-1 students must maintain residency in order to be eligible for OPT. This is secondary to the fact that if you're a PhD student on an F-1, you literally live in the US; you aren't just popping over for a few weeks now and then. The current situation basically forces people who have lived in the US for nearly 10 years to suddenly leave the country.
- xamuel 6y ago
  Thanks for pointing out Optional Practical Training (OPT), that's a good point. That might be a good thing for the feds to waive (once things go back to normal). On the second point, usually PhD students with that much seniority aren't taking a lot of regular classes anyway; by 10 years, you should definitely be post-candidacy. By that point you should be working on your dissertation and "classes" should mostly consist of 1-on-1s with your advisor.
  - p0llard 6y ago
    > by 10 years, you should definitely be post-candidacy. Yes sure, 10 years was perhaps a stretch. But anyone who has lived in the US pretty much continuously for 5 or 6 years (undergrad plus the first couple of years of grad school, or possibly at the end of an MIT MEng, which is often 4+2) is likely as integrated as they're ever going to be at that point. 5 years or 10 years doesn't really make that much of a difference: it's still going to have a huge impact on students who consider the US their home.

montenegrohugo 6y ago

Here's the email I got from Faculty this morning: Dear members of the FAS community, Shortly after Monday’s announcement about our plans for the fall semester, we learned that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new regulations that imperil the lives and academic progress of our international students and scholars. These new guidelines directly undermine the careful planning and approach we have taken for fall, specifically our plans to deliver all graduate and undergraduate instruction online. This plan was put forth to reconcile the health and safety needs of our community and the vitality of our academic mission, including accounting for the needs of our diverse, global community of students and scholars who face a host of limitations and complications brought about by the pandemic. This reckless reversal by ICE hurts our students and it hurts us as an institution. The FAS is an international community and that is a source of pride and inspiration. That we bring together the voices and perspectives of some of the brightest minds from across the world is fundamental to our intellectual strength and ambitions and must be protected. While there is still much we don’t know, we are working quickly to respond to the needs of our international students and scholars impacted by this news. To that end, early this morning, President Bacow announced that Harvard, together with MIT, has filed pleadings in the US District Court in Boston to seek a temporary restraining order against the enforcement of this order. In doing so, we continue to be guided by our core principles to protect our academic enterprise and preserve access and affordability for all our students. The new ICE order is a direct threat to that institutional imperative. But we are committed to doing all we can to enable our students and scholars to continue their studies without further disruption to their lives and academic progress in an already uncertain and challenging time. Many of you have reached out to express your concern about these new regulations and what they will mean for our students. I share your deep distress over this new order, and I assure you that the FAS and the University are working tirelessly to fight on behalf of our international students and scholars. We will explore all avenues and exhaust all options to chart a path forward that protects their place as valued members of the FAS community. Sincerely, Claudine It's the most strongly worded email I've ever seen from Harvard. It seems like they believe that the Trump Administration is trying to manipulate them into opening prematurely, and that they are very cognizant of this.

p0llard 6y ago

ghufran_syed 6y ago

I'd hate to be "forced" to return to my home country, but why can't these students just study online back in their own country, then come back for in-person classes sometime next year once covid is under control? The reason for excluding all-online classes is that historically it's been associated with much greater immigration fraud. If this really becomes a big issue for students, it's pretty trivial for the universities to turn their online classes into "hybrid" classes that require people to physically come to campus in a safe way - e.g. "residency course requirement: at some point in the week, every week you must come into the university and sign the attendance log website from a device logged into the campus wifi" .

bg24 6y ago

Right decision and all universities should follow suit to help the students. Imagine us being students and having to go through the pain, while Covid is all over the map.

GhostVII 6y ago

It sounds like these ICE regulations are not new, they are just removing some temporary exemptions they put in to place due to COVID. So the suit is against the removal of this exemption, there are no new restrictions in place that did not exist before COVID.

vturner 6y ago

MIT and Harvard being rather dishonest here. Seems like this is reverting back to what was before? "Due to COVID-19, SEVP instituted a temporary exemption regarding online courses for the spring and summer semesters. This policy permitted nonimmigrant students to take more online courses than normally permitted by federal regulation to maintain their nonimmigrant status during the COVID-19 emergency."

emiliobumachar 6y ago
I don't think they're being dishonest. This is indeed reverting back to what was before. The thing is, students who normally study onsite are still studying remotely due to the pandemic. The original law presumably was targeted at permanently remote classes. One can of course argue whether the exception is still reasonable, xamuel made a fair case that it's not. But the opposite case really does not seem dishonest.
oblio 6y ago
> COVID-19 emergency Where I'm standing, the US is definitely still in a Covid-19 emergency...

swiley 6y ago

Undoing the mess that was H1B was probably a good thing (provided an alternative path for professionals to immigrate without forcing them into indentured servitude becomes available) but this just seems stupid. The only good thing about is that it could change the way universities think about tuition? I don’t even understand the argument for why the students are being sent home. It spreads the virus around (people crossing borders is pretty bad for that) and if they were allowed here in the first place why are they being sent home now?

jrk 6y ago

Lots of the comments are talking about this as an MIT/Harvard issue. To be clear, MIT and Harvard are the first to file suit, but this radical policy by ICE dramatically affects every college and university, and every international student, in the country. And the suit seeks to strike down the policy altogether, not get an exemption for these two schools. This is not about Harvard and MIT at all, except insofar as they wound up being the ones with the position and deep pockets to most quickly file a strong suit to stop it.

sushshshsh 6y ago

Imagine playing politics over people's education and location of current residence. What a world.

beepboopbeep 6y ago

I firmly believe this is being done to damage the reputation of the USA as an immigrant friendly country in order to induce a major brain drain while also stemming the flow of Chinese students away from the mainland.

exolymph 6y ago
> in order to induce a major brain drain What is the motivation for desiring this, in your view?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

coreai 6y ago

The decision of ICE essentially was to not change anything. A student on F1 is only permitted to take certain number of online classes and must maintain his status with in person classes. The change to online classes means this affects ones status and the ICE notice meant they will not make any changes to these rules even in this situation. What people are saying is that this affects ones work status if he leaves the US post study but ideally a student is a student not seeking work or immigration into the US especially given that the H1B is suspended and OPT is not work it’s training. If the university says class is online then it means there is no reason for a student to live in the US. People confuse students with long term immigration even if that maybe the intention of the student. They are just students who are paying tuition and living in the US as far as anyone is concerned.

kevingadd 6y ago
There was previously an exemption put in place, they're suspending it.
foepys 6y ago
Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US afterwards? I was always under impression that this was the main goal of those programs. Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country, and hope for them stay and contribute to the economy.
- taylodl 6y ago
  That used to be the case but I'm not so sure the current regime is down for that - at least they're not acting like it.
- lutorm 6y ago
  Absolutely not. Maybe the US should, but according to the rules, a student visa is "nonimmigrant intent" and expressing the desire to stay in the US after your studies are over may in fact be grounds for denial of a visa because they may think you're going to overstay.
- 6y ago

viscountchocula 6y ago

Serious question: can the schools just have a required course that's like, walk around campus for an hour with a mask and describe your feelings? Pass/fail, 1 credit.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dharmab 6y ago
Normally, international students cannot take more than 3 credits of online classes to keep their visas. This rule was temporarily suspended in March, but is being reverted by ICE while the schools are not ready to fully reopen.
- yoden 6y ago
  No it's not. They're still allowing an exception that allows any number of online classes. They're just requiring at least one in-person credit, and for the university to say it is at least partially open.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Some students can't return for legal, practical or health reasons until covid is done (other can but probably shouldn't for personal reasons). So they lose their visa and won't be able to finish their degree when things do reopen.

Alex3917 6y ago

During the Vietnam war, colleges stopped grading so that it was impossible for anyone to fail out and get drafted. Why can't these colleges just create in-person classes that meet once a semester with optional attendance?

tanilama 6y ago
I mean probably the safety of the staff?
Ar-Curunir 6y ago
ICE is evil, not stupid; they'll probably rule that as invalid.
evanb 6y ago
The regulations explicitly mention and close this loophole. To count as in-person it can't just be for people who need help with their visa, and attendance can't be optional or sporadic.
SkyBelow 6y ago
If you are going to go big, go big. In person class with no attendance required. All projects are submitted to an online portal, like which already happens in in person classes.
Daishiman 6y ago
This is actually happening in Berkeley.
UncleMeat 6y ago
They could try. But this completely misunderstands how scary it is to be trying to follow the rules as somebody on a visa. "Let me try this weird loophole and hope that no agent comes to me and says 'get out of the country by the end of the week' for violating the spirit of the law" is not a compelling option. US Immigration is already a Kafkaesque nightmare of confusion and uncertainty. Creating the equivalent of a green card marriage in an almost completely transparent and obvious manner isn't going to put people at ease.

eric_b 6y ago

I spent 45 minutes this morning trying to get to the bottom of this whole thing - as usual there is more nuance to this than presented. - For as far back as I could find, students that wanted to qualify for a student visa to study in the US could take at most one online course per semester. The rest of the coursework had to be in-person. - Starting in the spring of this year, the SEVP program (part of ICE) created exemptions so students could continue to stay in the US even though universities had moved entirely online. These exemptions were for Spring and Summer and universities were awaiting the rules for Fall. - As of Monday, they are changing the exemptions. They are allowing any number of online classes, but with the caveat you have to have at least one in-person class. - If you are already in the US you have to leave if your university is online-only. [This is the part that feels punitive and particularly onerous to me] What is interesting to me is the framing of this. The new exemptions are still more flexible than the pre-existing student visa policy (which has been around through both Democratic and Republican administrations as far as I can tell). So on the one hand it's actually an improvement. On the other hand I think most of these universities were hoping the full exemption would continue as COVID is still very much a thing.

deleted 6y ago
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skrowl 6y ago
This is important. The media is trying to spin this as something new this administration is doing. It's sad that they're so biased against this administration to the point where they create a false narrative to try to blame Trump for everything. You literally could not have a student visa and attend classes 100% online in ANY of Obama's 8 years in office. Period. It's not a new policy, it's just going back to the way it was before the temporary covid-19 exemptions were put in place. It's not really a big news story when you get down to the fact and past the "TRUMP BAD!" headline.
- asciident 6y ago
  The difference is a lot of universities are remote only, due to being more concerned about safety. So it's simply not possible for the students to take in-person courses. This was not the case during Obama's years.

Consultant32452 6y ago

I think this is a first step in kicking out Chinese students. If you're from France, South Korea, Nigeria, etc. you'll be invited back soon enough. This is not a judgement on that plan, just a prediction.

oblio 6y ago
Why do you think that?
- Consultant32452 6y ago
  There has been multiple stories in the news recently about crackdowns on Chinese "spies" in the universities. I'm using the word spy loosely there, that's not the word that has been in the news. They talk about it more in the sense of secretly getting funding from China and not claiming it or whatever. My perception is that the belief is that this is a major avenue through which US tech is "stolen". The administration recently hinted that they will be blocking Chinese apps such as TikTok from being used in the US. The administration also hinted at breaking the currency peg to the dollar. A cold war is ongoing.

hello_1234 6y ago

This is cruel and wicked. Hopefully the courts stop this madness.

rexreed 6y ago

Higher education is due for a massive price correction. The cost of education has outstripped market ability and the movement to online while still asking top dollar tuition is going to make those education institutions increasingly pressured. Going online increases international ability to compete for students as well as professors, and this will also increase pressure on tuition pricing. Higher ed tuition pricing is bound for a massive correction.

quantum_state 6y ago

It looks like ICE has no better things to do in this pandemic...

sqrt 6y ago

Northeastern University (in Boston) has announced that they're joining MIT and Harvard's lawsuit: https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297 https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297