Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking a new Trump administration directive that would force potentially tens, or even hundreds, of thousands of foreign students at U.S. colleges to miss online-only instruction planned for the fall semester.

Alleging that the directive, released Monday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is both politically motivated and apparently designed to “create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible,” the two leading American universities launched a temporary restraining order- and injunction-based action that cites the Administrative Procedure Act and asks a Massachusetts federal court to halt the directive.