Wouldn't Graduate students be exempt from this to begin with? At least at the Ph.D level, past the first year or two you aren't even taking classes, the whole point of the degree is the research. They are also usually employed by the University as teaching assistants. How would this law impact them?

Note: I support the lawsuit, I have many friends who are or were international students, I live in Boston, just wondering how this would affect research-based grad students.

Most graduate students are in the US on F-1 visas [1] and still need to maintain a minimum course unit enrollment per semester in order to be in status [2]. IANAL, but I would assume they're not exempt from the new in-person requirement for their registered courses.

[1] https://educationusa.state.gov/your-5-steps-us-study/apply-y...

[2] https://ois.usc.edu/students/maintainingstudentstatus/, https://international.northeastern.edu/ogs/maintaining-statu..., etc. (many schools have some version of this FAQ page on their websites)

I don't know since I am not a lawyer.

I do know that I have faculty friends who have had their grad students come to them in tremendous distress related to this policy. So at least some people believe that this would deport graduate students who have advanced to candidacy.

> Giving them a few weeks before deporting them is cruel.

This is the intention of the Trump admin's policy: discouraging people from immigrating by whatever ugly means necessary, no matter if illegal or not. This has been a consistent line from the beginning with the infamous "muslim ban".