哈佛大学和麻省理工学院周三对美国政府发起了诉讼。这些学校正在寻求推翻川普政府对国际学生签证的新规定。
Under the rule, international students must take at least some of their college classes in person, transfer to U.S-based schools with in-person classes or leave the country. They will have to leave even if a health emergency forces their classes online later in the school year.
根据规定,国际学生必须至少参加一些他们大学的面授课程,或是转到美国其它提供面授课程的学校,或是离开美国。即使在这个学年的后期因为医疗紧急状况迫使他们在线上上课,他们也不得不离境。
The government will reject visa requests from international students at colleges or universities that only offer classes online.
美国政府将会拒绝那些在仅提供网课的高校就读的国际学生的签证申请。
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal law enforcement agency, announced the rule on Monday. The same day, many colleges, including Harvard, said all their classes later this year would be online.
美国移民与海关执法局这家联邦政府机构周一宣布了这项规定。当天,包括哈佛大学在内的许多大学都表示,今年下半年所有课程都将在线上进行。
MIT joined Harvard to file the legal challenge Wednesday morning in Boston. They asked a federal court to bar ICE from enforcing the new rule. They called for the return of the March 13, 2020 "exemption," which permitted international students to attend classes online while retaining their visa during the health emergency.
麻省理工学院联手哈佛大学周三上午在波士顿提起了法律诉讼。他们要求联邦法院禁止美国移民与海关执法局执行这一新规定。他们呼吁恢复2020年3月13日出台的豁免政策,这项政策允许国际学生在医疗紧急状况下,在上网课的同时保留他们的签证。
In a statement, Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow wrote, "The order came down without notice —its cruelty surpassed only by its recklessness." He said the new rule was designed to pressure colleges to hold classes in person, "without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students ..., and others."
哈佛大学校长劳伦斯·巴科在声明中写道,“这个命令下达得毫无征兆,极其残忍和鲁莽。”他说,新规定旨在迫使大学复课,“完全不考虑学生及其他人的健康和安全。”
The rule, Bacow added, "comes at a time when the United States has been setting daily records for the number of new infections, with more than 300,000 new cases reported since July 1."
巴科还说,这项规定“出台时正值美国新增感染病例创下每日记录之时,自7月1日以来已经报告了超过30万例新增病例。”
At a White House event on Tuesday, President Donald Trump denounced plans from Harvard and other colleges to hold classes online. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves," he said. "That's called the easy way out."
川普总统周二在白宫活动上谴责了哈佛等学校上网课的计划。他说:“他们应该自己感觉羞耻。那是避重就轻走捷径。”
The new rule affects about 5,000 international students at Harvard and nearly 4,000 attending MIT. In all, nearly 400,000 students received the F-1 or M-1 visa in the 12-month period ending in September 2019.
这项新规定影响到了哈佛大学大约5千名国际学生以及麻省理工学院近4千名学生。截至2019年9月的12个月时间里,一共有近40万学生获得了F-1或M-1签证。
Lewis Picard is a second-year doctoral student in experimental physics at Harvard University. The Australian told Reuters that having to leave "would completely put a roadblock in my research." He added, "There's essentially no way that the work I am doing can be done remotely. We've already had this big pause on it with the pandemic, and we've just been able to start going back to lab."
路易斯·皮卡德是哈佛大学实验物理学的二年级博士生。这名澳大利亚学生对路透社表示,被迫离境“将会彻底阻断我的研究。”他还说:“从本质上讲,我目前的工作无法远程完成。我们已经在大流行中耽误了这么久,我们才刚刚能开始回到实验室。”
Aparna Gopalan comes from India. The fourth-year anthropology doctoral student at Harvard said telling students to attend other universities for in-person classes was not realistic. "You can't transfer in July. That's not what happens," she said.
阿帕拉·高普兰来自印度。这名哈佛大学人类学四年级博士生表示,让学生去其它大学上面授课程是不现实的。她说:“你没法在7月转学。这办不到。”
Benjamin Bing, from China, was planning to study computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He said he no longer feels welcome in the United States and is looking at the possibility of finishing his study in Europe.
来自中国的本杰明·冰原计划到匹兹堡市的卡内基·梅隆大学就读计算机科学。他说,他觉得不再受到美国欢迎,并开始考虑在欧洲完成学业的可能性。
"I feel like it's kicking out everyone," he said, of the United States. "We actually paid tuition to study here and we did not do anything wrong."
他说,“我觉得大家都被美国抛弃了。我们付了学费来这里学习,我们没做错什么。”
I'm Jonathan Evans.
我是乔纳森·埃文斯。(51VOA.COM原创翻译,禁止转载,违者必究!)