By KoKo Huang and Gregory McCall

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reversed its July 6, 2020 announcement that nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not remain in the United States if they are taking a full online course load. As noted in our prior blog post, several universities—including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—challenged this directive in court. Other lawsuits soon followed. During a hearing on July 14, in the case filed in the District of Massachusetts by Harvard and MIT, the government agreed to revert to guidance issued in March 2020 that allowed foreign national students to remain in the United States despite attending remote online courses.