Google, Microsoft, Facebook join lawsuit against US visa rule forcing international students out

Washington: More than a dozen top American technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft, on Monday joined a lawsuit filed by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) latest rule that bars international students from staying in the United States if their classes have gone online.

The companies said that the July 6 ICE directive will disrupt their recruiting plans. It would make 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, they said.