The companies requested a restraining order and an interim injunction.
Washington:
More than a dozen leading U.S. technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, joined a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday against the latest Immigration and Customs (ICE) rule. Enforcement) which prohibits international students from staying in the United States unless they take at least one course in person.
In search of a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, these companies, along with the United States Chamber of Commerce and other information technology groups, claimed that the directive of July 6 on the ICE would disrupt their recruitment plans, making it impossible for international students to board companies. , including amici, planned to hire and disrupt the recruiting process that companies used to identify and train future employees.
The July 6 directive will prevent large numbers of international students from participating in the CPT and OPT programs. The United States “will absurdly send … these graduates to work for our global competitors and compete with us … instead of capitalizing on investment in their education here in the United States,” they said.
The Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program allows “other work / study, internship, cooperative education or any other type of internship or compulsory internship offered by sponsoring employers under cooperation agreements with the school of a Student”.
On the other hand, the optional practical training program (OPT) allows up to one year of temporary employment directly related to the main field of study of an international student, which can occur either before the student obtains his diploma and / or after his studies are completed. Students in STEM fields can get a two-year extension from their postgraduate OPT, they said.
Preventing more than half of all international students from participating in recruitment for US companies would hurt businesses and the economy as a whole, and would disrupt dependency expectations based on previous policies allowing international students to stay United States, the companies said.
Claiming that international students make a substantial contribution to the U.S. economy when they reside in the U.S., the legal file said the departure of these students threatened the ability of U.S. educational institutions to maintain critical mass – including they need to maintain their standards of excellence, to train American students who will constitute the pool of talent available to amici and other American businesses in the future, and to carry out the research that keeps American businesses in the cutting edge of innovation.
“International students are an important source of employees for American businesses while they are students and after graduation. Finally, they become valued employees and customers of American businesses, whether they stay in the United States or return to their country of origin, “said the companies. .
According to computer companies, international students living in the United States make a substantial contribution to the country’s GDP and have a particularly significant impact in the cities where colleges and universities are located. During the 2018-2019 academic year, more than 10 lakh of these students attended higher education institutions in the United States.
Cutting the number of international students living in the United States by half or more – even for a single school year – will hurt the economy, amplifying the negative economic effects of the ongoing pandemic. International students contribute billions of dollars to the US economy each year. For the 2018-2019 academic year alone, “international students from American colleges and universities have contributed nearly $ 41 billion to the US economy and supported 458,290 jobs,” the companies said.
Observing that for seven international students living in the United States, three jobs are supported because of their presence, companies said that international education “ranked fifth in the country’s service exports” in 2019. Small businesses – cafes in bookstores – in communities across the country, they benefit greatly from the presence of international students, they said.
The companies told the court that if these students could not study in the United States until the end of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many of them would not return: they would move on to study programs elsewhere in the world. And without international students, many American STEM programs will contract sharply and eventually cease to exist.
