Following backlash, the U.S. has repealed the July 6 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guideline requiring international students to take a minimum of one in-person course or be deported.
On July 14, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs announced the recension of ICE’s recent adaptation of the Student and Exchange Visitor Program that grants visas to international students. This decision follows criticism from hundreds of universities and lawsuits filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The suits filed by Harvard and MIT stated that refusing to issue visas to international students only taking online courses would not only cause issues with receiving their education due to time differences and troubles in their home countries, but also would harm the U.S. economy.
Additionally, 17 different states filed their own lawsuits against this guideline and over 200,000 citizens signed online petitions to allow international students to stay in the U.S.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.