Trump administration backs off on deporting foreign students' taking online classes

Foreign students will be allowed to take online classes while the coronavirus pandemic ravages the U.S. 

The sound you hear is the sigh of relief from the more than one million international students currently studying in the US.

Oh, that other sound you hear is White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's point man on immigration, pulling out his hair.

The Trump administration reversed its rule announced last week that would have required foreign students to take in-person classes instead of the online classes being offered by their schools, a necessity as a safety measure against the coronavirus.

“Instead of fighting coronavirus, President Trump and Stephen Miller have tried to use the crisis as an excuse to spread xenophobia and deport international students," said US Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

If allowed to be enforced, the rule would have "disproportionately impacted Asian students, who account for over 60% of all international students enrolled in U.S. institutions," said Chu.

The policy applied to holders of F-1 and M-1 visas, which are for academic and vocational students. The state department issued 388,839 F visas and 9,518 M visas in the fiscal year 2019, according to the agency's data. The largest number of foreign students came from China and India.

The government's reversal was announced Tuesday (July 14) at the start of hearing in Boston of a lawsuit filed by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology against the Department of Homeland Security's requirement. U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said federal immigration authorities agreed to pull the July 6 directive and “return to the status quo.”

Besides the suit by Harvard and MIT, scores of other colleges backed the complaint and 20 states, including California and Massachusetts, filed their own legal action against the Trump administration's threat of deportation if the foreign students don't comply.

The government's existing law requiring in-person classes was suspended last Spring during the pandemic when most colleges reverted to online instruction. The Harvard-MIT suit noted that Trump’s national emergency declaration has not been rescinded and that virus cases are spiking in some regions.

As the colleges began planning for the fall semester in June, many of them opted for online classes. While most of the attention has focused on college-level students, It is presumed the rules would have applied to high schools also, which often host exchange students during the school year.

The rule, which would dissuade more foreign students from attending US schools, is just one of the many measures employed by the Trump administration to halt or limit immigration to the United States. Most of the ideas for Trump's anti-immigrant positions come from the architect of Trump's immigration policies Stephen Miller, who has ties with white nationalist publications.

During his administration, Trump has attempted to slow immigration to the U.S. but in the last half a year, he has used the pandemic immigration to the U.S. has basically grinded to a halt.

Among the other anti-immigrant ideas attempted -- implemented or rejected by the courts -- are:

• The travel bans from predominantly Muslim countries;
• A multi-billion dollar wall between the U.S. and Mexico;
• A shift away from family reunification, a core policy since the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, and move to prioritizing workers needed in the U.S.;
• A complete temporary suspension for new H-1B worker visas except for those  professions deemed "essential" in fighting against the coronavirus, such as agricultural workers and medical professionals;
• Implemented a 60-day period that stopped the issuance of green cards;
• A reduction to almost zero, the number of asylum seekers being accepted into the U.S.;
• An increase of deportations of former refugees who may have committed minor crimes as youth (affecting mostly refugees from Southeast Asia).

While a few of the policies have been implemented, others are languishing in the courts. Others, like the foreign student requirement, have been reversed.

With all the lawsuits filed against the government, Silicon Valley firms including tech giants Google, Facebook and Twitter, also came out in support of the lawsuit, arguing that the policy would harm their businesses. Then on Tuesday, 15 GOP Congressmembers sent a letter urging the Trump administration to retain its earlier policy on international students, according to the NY Times.

“It is no surprise that the announcement was met with immediate backlash from colleges, universities, tech companies, and government officials, including members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. Today, due to that pressure, the Trump administration was forced to back down," said Chu. "This is a wonderful victory and a reminder that we must continue to push back against Donald Trump’s dangerous attempts to use the coronavirus crisis as an excuse to further his anti-immigrant agenda.”