Local Institutions Prevail as Trump Administration Backs Off Change to Foreign Student Visa Policy

As numerous colleges and universities across the country – including Pasadena’s Caltech, Fuller Seminary, and Pacific Oaks College — joined forces to take legal action, the federal government rescinded a new visa policy Tuesday that required international students to take at least one in-person class during the coronavirus pandemic or face deportation to their home countries.

In a statement Tuesday, Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum said,  “We are pleased that the government appears ready to rescind its July 6 order and return to the March policies,” said in a statement. “Caltech currently enrolls more than 700 international undergraduate and graduate students. Ensuring that these scholars, and international students across the country, can continue to bring their formidable skills to bear at American universities is critical to the United States’ ability to be a global leader.”

In the decision, the court said the Trump Administration agrees to revert to a March rule, enacted when the coronavirus pandemic caused shutdowns across the country. The March rule allowed international students to attend all classes online during the pandemic.

Caltech joined 19 other research institutions, liberal arts colleges, and public universities in the West filed suit to block the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from enforcing and implementing a July 6 order that revokes visas for international students whose studies will be entirely online in the fall.

Caltech had filed an amicus brief jointly with peers last Sunday,  in support of a lawsuit brought by Harvard and MIT against the July 6 order.

On Monday, the coalition of institutions in the lawsuit called the order “reckless and arbitrary,” and noted that it would not only harm international students but also “rob institutions of higher education of the autonomy and flexibility to adapt models of instruction to meet the urgent needs posed by a global pandemic.”

The decision was announced during a Boston federal court hearing on a lawsuit brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology challenging the ICE restriction.

The Harvard/MIT suit, filed July 6, asked the court to prevent the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from enforcing the new guidance and to declare it unlawful.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also challenged the rule, in conjunction with the California State University system and state community colleges.

“In the midst of an economic and public health crisis, we don’t need the federal government alarming Americans or wasting everyone’s time and resources with dangerous policy decisions,” Becerra said Tuesday.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Oregon, alleged that the new rules suddenly put thousands of international students “in dire straits.”

“Those who are unable to enroll in in-person courses for the Fall face the threat of removal. They may be sent back to a country with little or no internet access, they may face new health or safety risks in that country or they may not even have a home to go back to,” the suit said. “Once expelled, they may never be able to reapply for or reenter the F-1 (student visa) program, thus permanently ending their post-secondary education.”

Along with the three Pasadena colleges, plaintiffs included Pitzer, Scripps and Pomona colleges, Chapman University in Orange, Claremont McKenna College and the University of San Diego.

According to the 36-page complaint, the DHS and ICE gave no prior notice when it announced the new rules and gave no indication that the government “considered how its action would impact the health of students, faculty, staff or surrounding communities.”

When the policy was announced, ICE issued a statement saying the U.S.

Department of State would not issue visas “to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States.”

In seeking a court order halting the policy, the plaintiffs in the Oregon suit alleged that the ICE order was “contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious.”

On Friday, attorneys for seven international university students studying in Orange and Los Angeles counties sued the Trump administration, alleging that new rules on foreign student visas makes them “pawns in a political drama.” The federal civil complaint, filed in Santa Ana, sought a court order preventing the government from enforcing the policy.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities across the nation began to shift to largely online classes in March to discourage bringing people together in a confined space.

At that time, international students were protected by guidance issued by the student visitor program, which kept non-immigrant student visas in compliance regardless of how their colleges managed the shift from in-person classes.

However, as California registers some of its highest new daily cases totals since the pandemic began, DHS rolled back its exemptions from the spring, requiring students whose schools choose to conduct the fall 2020 term entirely online to leave the United States.