Dive Brief:
- Several higher education groups sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday, alleging that the agency issued guidance unlawfully restricting a program that allows international students to get hands-on training experience during college.
- For decades, the Curricular Practical Training program has permitted international students to participate in off-campus training opportunities like internships. In August, DHS said such programs would only qualify for CPT if they were required for degree completion.
- That marked “a sudden, unexplained reversal” from the government’s longstanding position, which allowed a wider array of training opportunities to qualify for CPT, the higher education groups argued. They urged the court to strike down the new guidance.
Dive Insight:
The lawsuit — brought by the Association of American Universities, the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, and others — argued that DHS unlawfully reversed decades of “settled agency interpretation” with its new guidance.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the F-1 student visa program for DHS, said in an email Tuesday that the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
CPT has long allowed international students to participate in training opportunities if they are “an integral part of an established curriculum” and directly related to their studies. However, “the regulations governing CPT have never limited internships or similar opportunities only to those that are mandatory for everyone pursuing a degree,” the groups argued in their lawsuit.
Before DHS’ moves, training programs qualified for CPT in two ways, according to the lawsuit. The first is if students receive academic credit for the training program, while the second is if students don’t receive credit for the program but it is required to complete their degree.
“Only the second pathway is limited to experiences mandatory for completion of a degree; the regulatory history makes clear that training opportunities that receive academic credit qualify for CPT even when they are elective,” the groups argued.
The agency’s new guidance rules out “valuable training opportunities for international students,” the groups argued, giving the example of a law student interning for a judge or an art history major completing a training program at a museum.
“Each is an opportunity that may no longer be available under DHS’s new interpretation of the governing regulation,” they wrote.
Moreover, the new guidance threatens colleges with severe sanctions, including potentially losing their ability to enroll international students. College officials that oversee CPT programs also face personal criminal liability if they don’t comply with the guidance.
The groups argue the new guidance violates the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging DHS has unlawfully changed longstanding policy without giving a reasoned explanation and because DHS officials changed the eligibility rules for the CPT program without going through a notice-and-comment period.
Many colleges, including Columbia University, Michigan State University and Tufts University, have all narrowed which CPT programs they authorize based on DHS’ new guidance, according to the lawsuit.
“Institutions of every kind — from the nation’s leading research universities to community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and regional public institutions in every state — have had no choice but to comply immediately, given the government’s threat to strip their ability to enroll international students at all,” the groups wrote.
