Over 200 universities, 17 US states sue over foreign student rule

The Department of Homeland Security says the policy is backed by existing law and still provides leniency. Seventeen US states and more than 200 universities are taking legal action to challenge the Trump administration’s new restrictions on international students, arguing that the policy jeopardises students’ safety and forces institutions to reconsider new plans for the coming semester that they have spent months preparing. “The Trump administration didn’t even attempt to explain the basis for this senseless rule, which forces schools to choose between keeping their international students enrolled and protecting the health and safety of their campuses,” Maura Healey, the Massachusetts attorney general, said in a statement announcing the suit. Legal questions The Department of Homeland Security and ICE said the new policy is backed by existing law forbidding foreign students from taking all of their classes online. They challenged the policy’s legal grounds and said it forces institutions across the nation to “choose between opening their campuses regardless of the public health risks, or forcing their international students to leave the country.” The group includes all the so-called Ivy League universities as well as other prestigious universities like Stanford and Duke, which together have more than 213,000 international students.