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 The Harvard-MIT suit noted that Trump’s national emergency declaration has not been rescinded and that virus cases are spiking in some regions.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.”

Harvard, MIT, Northeastern file suit to block ICE action against international students

ASAM NEWS

Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University are suing the Trump administration over a guideline that would prevent international students from taking online classes in the US, CNN reports. 

On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released guidelines which stated that “students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,” according to CNBC

The University of Southern California will file an amicus brief in support of the legal action by the eastern schools.

The University of California, which has over 41,000 international students, said late Wednesday that it fight the ICE action. It is unclear if UC will join the lawsuit by Harvard, MIT and Northeastern or if it will file a separate suit.

Students enrolled in educational institutions operating entirely online “must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction.”

The Department of Homeland Security has said that “all students scheduled to study at a U.S. institution in the fall will be able to do so, though some will be required to study from abroad if their presence is not required for any in-person classes in the United States,” according to CNN.

ICE has recommended that international students enrolled in programs going online-only in the fall consider transferring to schools that will be offering in-person instruction.

According to CNN, there are more than 1 million international students in the United States. Many are enrolled in schools that will be using online-only instruction for the upcoming fall semester.

Harvard is one of those schools. Earlier this week, the university announced that all course instruction would be delivered online. They say the ICE guidelines could impact 5,000 international students.

Harvard and MIT jointly filed the lawsuit against ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. They say that the ICE guidelines violate the Administrative Procedures Act and put universities in an “untenable situation” of either proceeding with online-only instruction or attempting to implement some form of in-person instruction.

“It appears that it was designed purposefully to place pressure on colleges and universities to open their on-campus classrooms for in-person instruction this fall, without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others,” Harvard’s President Bacow said, according to CNBC.

The lawsuit also says that the guidelines create challenges for international students. It argues that many international students will not be able to access online instruction if they are forced to return to their home countries.

“Moreover, for many students, returning to their home countries to participate in online instruction is impossible, impracticable, prohibitively expensive, and/or dangerous,” the lawsuit states, according to CNN.

It criticized ICE’s suggestion that international students simply transfer to schools offering in-person instruction.

“Just weeks from the start of the fall semester, these students are largely unable to transfer to universities providing on-campus instruction, notwithstanding ICE’s suggestion that they might do so to avoid removal from the country,” the lawsuit states.

Bacow said that Harvard and MIT are committed to ensuring that international students can continue their studies without worry.

“We will pursue this case vigorously so that our international students — and international students at institutions across the country — can continue their studies without the threat of deportation,” Bacow said.

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.

International students stuck between coronavirus and limbo

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Sather Gate, the main entrance to the Unviveristy of California, Berkeley is eerily empty as the campus has closed down for the remainder of the school year.

International students are in a bind, stuck between a hard place and the coronavirus: Go home, or stay? If I stay, where will I live? If I go, will I be allowed to return to the US? Do online classes qualify for the F-1 visa requirements? 

The US is home to about 1.1 million international students, most of them from Asian countries. According to the 2019 Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange. International students make up 5.5 percent of the total U.S. higher education population.

For the tenth consecutive year, China remained the largest source of international students in the United States in 2018/19 with 369,548 students in undergraduate, graduate, non-degree, and optional practical training (OPT) programs, a 1.7 percent increase from 2017/18. India (202,014, +2.9 percent), South Korea (52,250, -4.2 percent), according to Institute of International Education.

RELATED: Indian American hoteliers offer free rooms for students from India

All of the schools with the largest international-student populations have moved their classes online, according to a Quartz analysis of the 36 universities that enroll a third of international students in the US. 

Despite the anti-China sentiment seeping through the Trump administration, China still provides the most students to the US with 368,800 students. Next comes India with 194,556 students, then South Korea with almost 60,000.

As of March 23, 72% of the universities told students to leave campus housing. The others left the choice to students. All universities say that they will help students who cannot return home stay on campus or find alternative housing.

While most universities and colleges leave the question of whether or not to stay in the US up to the individual student as a personal choice, some, like the UC Berkeley, University of Washington and University of Arizona advise their foreign students to stay because of the uncertain future the Trump administration's restrictive immigration policies.

UC Berkeley suggests that international students make up about 16.2% of the student body, or a total of 6,768 international students, graduate and undergraducate, on campus. Students from China number about 3,000, or about 7% of the entire student body. India and South Korea follow with about 700 and 550 students, respectively.

RETURNING HOME?

Some countries like China, where the coronavirus was first discovered, are discouraging the students' returning. Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of Beijing’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a recent press conference that Chinese students overseas should “refrain from coming home unless it’s very necessary,” because the government fears a resurgence of the virus from students returning from the US, which now has the most cases of COVID-19.

UC Berkeley points out that the visa offices have been closed in most US embassies and consulates. As the coronavirus spreads, at any moment the Trump administration may add more countries to the travel ban already applied to China , Iran and European countries, 

The schools also point out that returning to their home countries, the students may live in areas with shaky Internet services and might be unable to watch the online classes being offered in place of the in-person classes of pre-coronavirus pandemic. Also, because of the time differences, online classes might be shown in the middle of the night in some countries. For example, a class taking place at 3 p.m. in the eastern time zone of the US,  might begin at 3 a.m. in China.

International students in a quandary on what to do next.

F-1 STUDENT VISAS

Typically, the F-1 student visas require in-person instruction and limit a student’s ability to participate in online courses. 

The Student Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which is a unit within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that oversees the F-1 international student visa program, has offered these guidelines for online courses.

Off of the University of Southern California website: "Due to the rapidly evolving situation with COVID-19, SEVP issued guidance to universities that allows for increased flexibility to ensure international students can continue their academic progress. Universities can implement temporary adjustments such as moving to online instruction without negatively impacting the immigration status of enrolled international students."

International students face an uncertain financial and economic future as the Isolate-in-place mandates might extend into the summer. Some schools are considering offering part-time jobs to those students to help them defray costs of staying in the US over the summer.

At the same time, colleges are scrambling to advise students who are set to graduate this spring. Those who do not plan to continue their studies or to stay in the US to work must leave the country within 60 days of graduation when their F-1 visa would expire. It’s not clear if the Department of Homeland Security’s relaxation of current rules — which a spokeswoman said were intended to ensure that students “can continue to make normal progress in a full course of study” — would apply to departure deadlines.

Bri Rhodes, director of international-student advising at Mount Holyoke College, said his intitution is looking a various scenarios: What should they advise students whose visas or passports expire? If the outbreak persists into the summer, will they need to provide housing for those stranded in the United States? With quarantines slowing the global economy and keeping many people out of work in China, will international students need emergency financial help?

“We’re trying to have four or five different plans at the ready,” she told the Chronicle for Higher Education.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Graduation celebrations like this  at Columbia University in New York City in past years, will not be held
on US college campuses this Spring because of coranavirus concerns.

Having more students remain on the campus means colleges will need to maintain services they usually reduce or eliminate during the summer months. At the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, administrators will need to decide whether to keep the campus buses running and how many dining halls should remain open, Kathryn E. Tudini, associate vice provost for international-student services, told the Chronicle.

SUNY-Buffalo is looking at providing extra on-campus jobs or internships for international students, Tudini said. Visa rules forbid international students to work off campus, and by staying in the US, they may be further penalized if they seek employment in their home countries.

Besides the legal and academic complexities facing the students, just as important is how are they faring emotionally? These are young people, far from home and family, living in a strange  environment that is increasingly hostile to people of Asian descent.

Reports of students being beaten or harassed on college campuses abound. Since a website, Stop AAPI Hate, was established to record attacks against Asians and Asian Americans because of the coronavirus less than a month ago, over 1000 incidents have been reported.

International students are advised to seek help at their individual college websites for questions regarding their particular situation or to report any hate incidents.

Indian American hoteliers provide free accommodation to stranded Indian students in US

International students are caught in a bind as college campuses close down.

ASAM NEWS

Indian American hoteliers came to the rescue for stranded Indian students in the US with no place to stay, after the implementation of lockdown measures because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Ever since the coronavirus pandemic, Indian students have been ordered to vacate their hostels and dormitories. As India banned international flights for a week from March 22nd, approximately 250,000 Indian students had no where to go.

“You spend four years at a university, and you work incredibly hard and expect that at the end you can tie a bow on it and wrap it up,” Isabella Kwasnik, a senior at Harvard told The New York Times. 

“But there’s this unexpected outcome,” she said. “It’s just a logistical and emotional nightmare.”To ensure safe security for these students, the Indian Embassy pledged to take appropriate measures last week. According to AP Herald, the Indian Embassy has been running a round-the-clock helpline for students in the U.S. and calling hotels nation-wide for help.

Soon after, Indian American hoteliers offered more than 6,000 rooms in nearly 700 hotels for free. In some cases, hoteliers even provided free food.

The Indian Consulate in New York was one of the first to participate.

Working side by side with Hammock Worldwide Hotels and Resorts, the Indian Consulate in New York provided temporary accommodation for students at a flat rate of $50 per night. But according to Live Mint, once hotels started to offer free rooms and free meals, everyone agreed to join in.

Kalpesh Joshi, a regional director of Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), upper Midwest region was one of them. In an interview with Economic Times, Joshi explained how he and other Indian American hoteliers decided to help because “the students were in trouble and had no place to go.” Joshi continued by saying, “as members of the Indian community we all feel it’s our responsibility to help.”

Florida based Vipul Patel, the national president of Asian American Store Owners Association also said the Indian American community truly united together. Patel told Times Now News that he never came across any hotel owner who said “no” to helping these Indian students.


Rooms would be allocated to students on the recommendation of the Indian Embassy and its consulates in Houston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco and New York.