WASHINGTON – The Trump administration abandoned plans to deport international students amid the coronavirus pandemic after two of the country’s top universities sued immigration authorities.
Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won a legal battle Tuesday challenging new immigration guidelines that say international students would face deportation if they took their classes entirely online in the fall, according to multiple reports.
US District Judge Allison D. Burroughs made the announcement during a teleconference hearing after top universities presented the legal challenge last week.
The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement released the new guidelines when President Trump increased pressure on the nation’s schools and universities to return to in-person learning as soon as possible.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funds for schools that don’t reopen in the fall.
Immigration guidelines would have left hundreds of thousands of international students in limbo, and the American Council on Education called the policy “horrible.”
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