Trump administration rescinds rule that could have deported thousands of international students

Lawyers for the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a new rule that would have forced international college students to leave the U.S., transfer to another college or face deportation if their schools held classes entirely online because of the covid-19 pandemic.

In the week since it was issued, the rule triggered eight federal lawsuits as well as opposition from hundreds of universities across the U.S. that enrolled more than 1 million international students last year.

Locally, Penn State, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, the city of Pittsburgh and a coalition of international graduate students — led by students from Carnegie Mellon and MIT — filed friend of the court briefs supporting the lawsuit filed by Harvard and MIT, which challenged the rule the day after it was announced.

Leaders in higher education institutions alleged that the rule was part of a move to force colleges and universities to reopen this fall.

Divyansh Kaushik, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon, helped organize the coalition of international graduate students that filed a brief supporting the suit. He said he was on a conference call about the lawsuit when he got the news that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was rescinding the rule.

“That was the shortest conference call I’ve ever been on,” Kaushik said.

The Associated Press reported that the decision was announced in federal court in Boston just as a hearing was scheduled to begin in the Harvard and MIT lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to rescind the rule.

She said that decision left in place a March 13 rule granting international students permission to remain here and attend class online when the global pandemic shuttered campuses across the nation.

A lawyer representing the Department of Homeland Security and ICE said only that the judge’s characterization was correct.

With universities such as Harvard, MIT, the University of Southern California and West Chester University of Pennsylvania announcing they will be online only this fall, and others worried that they could be forced to close campuses in the event of a new covid-19 surge, international students who opted to remain here in the spring were worried.

At Carnegie Mellon, where international students account for about 43% of the total enrollment of 14,800 students, Kaushik was relieved to hear that the rule was scrapped.

“I think (ICE) was hearing from members of Congress. We had broad support from religious groups, tech companies, the Chamber of Commerce and Democrats and Republicans alike,” he said. “I feel good right now. I’m just glad we were able to help.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.