President Donald Trump's administration agreed Tuesday to rescind its plans to ban foreign college students from living in the U.S. if their university is implementing online classes only during the fall semester.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency released the visa restrictions last week. The rule would have forced foreign college students to leave the U.S. and take their online courses in another country.

The Trump administration faced immediate backlash, as many colleges and universities had already announced offering online-only classes because of the coronavirus pandemic. This meant college students under the visa restrictions faced deportation or prevention from going into the U.S.

It left many scrambling to figure out how they will deal with the new rules.

A Slew of Lawsuits

Universities like Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) filed a case against the visa restrictions of the administration. A Massachusetts judge, District Judge Allison Burroughs, said the request to stop the rule is moot as the government chose to drop the restrictions.

On a Tuesday session at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the universities were expected to argue their case, saying the rule was hard to do for schools and even harmful for students, reported NPR.

In a BBC report, Burroughs said the parties have come to a settlement.

On Monday, 18 states had sued the Department of Homeland Security over the rule, USA Today reported.

California officials also intended to file a case, saying the rule will "risk education possibilities." They pointed out that they have the most number of students on visas than any other state in the U.S.

The legal challenge was supported by many colleges, universities, municipalities, and tech companies.

Dropped Nationwide

Since the new directive was dropped "on a nationwide basis," schools will follow ICE guidelines set last March. The past rule gives room for flexibility regarding college student visas.

It let international students attend all of their classes online as the pandemic is taking place.

Some universities planned to offer online classes only this fall due to the concern that college campuses might make coronavirus hot spots and add to the country's number of cases.

The rules were set as the Trump admin seeks to reopen universities and K-12 schools in the fall.

The visa restrictions, issued last July 6 by ICE, would have done a hard blow to students and universities alike.

Foreign Students in U.S. Universities

Nine percent of the schools in the U.S. are going to do online study due to the pandemic. Harvard and MIT are some of those universities.

Harvard plans to move online and intends to ask up to 40% of its students to go back on campus. MIT is planning to do both on-campus and online classes.

The restrictions applied to F-1 and M-1 visa holders, which are academic and vocational students. In 2019, the state department issued 388,893 F visas and 9,518 M visas.

The commerce department also saw that international students added $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018. Last year, the U.S. saw 1.1 million international students. 

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