A federal hearing which asks for a temporary restraining order to keep Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from barring international students living in the country from being deported had been put off until Friday.
Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Northeastern and Georgetown University are all a part of the lawsuit that is pushing back against the federal government's plan to have ICE force out international students whose schools will only offer online classes in the fall.
Both sides appeared remotely before a federal judge in Boston Thursday morning but the judge set another hearing for Friday at 10 a.m.
Susan Church, an immigration attorney says schools are arguing that the government gave no sound reason for their decision.
"The action has no basis in reality except for the [Trump] administration's agenda of making everybody go back to work at great risk to their health," Church said.
Umut Arslan, a senior at Harvard University, is among the students affected by ICE's plan.
"I'm actually thinking of taking the whole year off because it's just not worth going to Harvard for this," Arslan said.
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Attorneys say Massachusetts would be most affected, with thousands of international students enrolled. The schools say the ICE decision throws higher education into chaos.
