Xinhua News Agency, Washington, July 13 (Reporter Xu Jianmei and Deng Xianlai) The 17 US states and the capital, Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court in Boston, Massachusetts on the 13th, seeking to prevent the new regulations for student visas issued by the US government from taking effect.
In the complaint, the attorney generals of 17 states and Washington DC listed the US Department of Homeland Security and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau as defendants, accusing the US government of "cruel, abrupt and illegal actions to expel international students in the epidemic."
Massachusetts Attorney General Mora Healy, who led the joint lawsuit, issued a statement saying: "This provision lacks common sense, forcing schools to choose between keeping international students enrolled and protecting campus health and safety. The Trump administration has not even Try to explain its basis." The statement said that the new regulations for international student visas will not only harm international students and their families, but will also "inflict irreparable damage" to the public health and economic conditions of their state.
New Jersey Attorney General Gebir Greval issued a statement saying that the new rules for international student visas "use international students and their tuition fees as a lever to force colleges and universities to start face-to-face classes before they are ready, putting all students' lives at risk. in".
The US media quoted litigation documents and reported that a total of 1124 colleges and universities in the 17 states and Washington DC that initiated the joint lawsuit enrolled approximately 373,300 international students in 2019. About 40 American universities such as Yale University, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago submitted a statement in support of this joint lawsuit.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau issued a notice on the 6th that if international students only take online courses in the fall 2020 semester, they will not be able to obtain a visa to the United States or maintain the current visa. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the lead on the 8th to file a lawsuit, requesting the federal court to suspend the new visa regulations, which has received support from colleges and universities across the United States. The Boston District Court is scheduled to start hearings on the 14th. In addition, the Attorney General of California in the local federal district court and Johns Hopkins University in the District Court of Washington, DC, also sued the federal government separately to prevent the implementation of the new regulations. About a hundred members of Congress recently sent a joint letter to the US Department of Homeland Security calling for the cancellation of the new regulations for international student visas.