In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the first Logan immigration case, eight universities in the Boston area and Worcester say they have 535 students and 217 professors and researchers from the seven countries affected by the government's ban on travel from predominantly Muslim countries.

But the schools - Harvard, MIT, Brandeis, Northeastern, Tufts, BU, BC and WPI - write they are already seeing a dropoff in the numbers of students and professors from other countries who now fear having anything to do with an American university because of the risk they could be trapped either there or here by future bans:

To give one example, [one university] had recently extended a postdoctoral offer to a prospective student from Ukraine, but the student has indicated that she is unlikely to accept due to the unpredictable environment. Although there are reportedly no current plans in place to expand the EO’s current list of seven countries, high-ranking Executive Branch officials have suggested that an expansion may well occur in the future.28 Given those statements and the abruptness with which the existing EO was issued, foreign scholars and students may not be willing to risk be being stranded here or abroad with hopes of simply gaining an education or educating young minds in the United States.

The eight schools wrote their brief to try to convince a federal judge in Boston to permanently enjoin the federal government from enforcing its ban - saying it would harm not just the schools and student themselves, but the American economy and our interests abroad:

As a matter of pure economics, few investments produce a greater return for our nation than investments in higher education, innovation, and research. The United States economy has been fueled by foreign-born innovators who came to this country and chose to stay for extended periods of time. According to one study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), "[i]mmigrants have started more than half (44 of 87) of America's startup companies valued at $1 billion or more and are key members of management or product development teams in over 70 percent (62 of 87) of these companies." Indeed, one can only imagine how different the American economy would be if Abdul Fattah Jandali—Steve Jobs's biological father—were not permitted to enter the United States from his original home in Homs, Syria, to study at the University of Wisconsin. The creation of new wealth generates obvious financial benefits for the United States, as well as considerable job growth. Each of the $1 billion startups in the NFAP study has "created an average of approximately 760 jobs . . . in the United States."