Trump’s new student visa rule: US tech giants join Harvard lawsuit

Google, Facebook, Microsoft and more than a dozen top technology companies of United States (US), on Monday joined a lawsuit filed by the Harvard University and the MIT against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) latest rule that bars international students from staying in America unless they attend at least one in-person course.

Seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, these companies, along with the US Chamber of Commerce and other IT advocacy groups asserted that the July 6 ICE directive will disrupt their recruiting plans, making it impossible to bring on board international students that businesses, had planned to hire, and disturb the recruiting process on which the firms have relied on to identify and train their future employees.

According to the IT companies, international students residing in the US make a substantial contribution to the country's GDP. Reducing by half or more the number of international students residing in the United States — even for a single school year — will hurt the economy, amplifying the adverse economic effects of the ongoing pandemic.