All international students in the US could face deportation - the ICE strikes again
News Analysis by Albert Geokgeuzian, Staff Writer
July 9th, 2020
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) announced, on Monday July 6, 2020, that “...The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States… If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”
International students are now required to attend in person classes if they are to maintain their F-1 visas, even though most states in the US have seen an increasing number of coronavirus cases.
While many universities had already decided on their strategies and responses on how to proceed with the Fall 2020 semester, they now have until July 15 to make certain international students attend classes in person or risk deportation. This comes only 4 months after SEVP announced, on March 13th, that it will allow F-1 and M-1 students the ability to reinstate their visas even if they are only taking online courses and that this will be “in effect for the duration of the emergency”.
“What is just, to me, absolutely staggering is we have been asking for this guidance since April” said Lizbet Boroughs, who is the associate vice president of federal affairs at the Association of American Universities, to The Washington Post. She later added her concerns to the universities who had already decided on only offering online classes and whether or not they would change their stance.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, who are tracking about 1,100 US colleges, said that 8% of US colleges had chosen to have their classes online. Universities such as the University of Southern California, Harvard, MIT had all announced they were primarily going to give online courses before SEVP made their announcement. In fact, Harvard, in conjunction with MIT, is now pursuing a restraining order on the “Student Ban”. They are seeking “A temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief preventing Defendants from enforcing the policy announced in ICE’s July 6 Directive, or promulgating it as a Final Rule”.
In the document, they note that “The effect—and perhaps even the goal—is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible.” Many alumni from other universities are calling for their own universities to add their names to this lawsuit.
On social media there has been an outcry of support for international students and a call to reverse this decision made by SEVP. One student wrote “I regret coming here for a better education. Its so cruel to uproot lives in the middle of a pandemic over reasons entirely beyond our control. Everything is so uncertain and I’ve never felt less like a human being.”
Many have felt that this is a xenophobic decision. Mainly due to the fact that international students contributed $41 billion to the US economy and supported 458,290 jobs over the 2018-19 academic year and that %52 of international students are from China and India. Moreover Boroughs asked “If their labs close and they’re not able to work full time on dissertation research … do they have to leave the country?” in the same Washington Post interview. “We know there are many PhD candidates who are involved in critical research to respond to this covid pandemic.”
At this moment, we have to wait and see. The situation is still developing, the outcry from individuals has been massive, the action taken by major universities such as Harvard and MIT will prove to be crucial. From a more analytical perspective, I, personally, would not be surprised if the policy was eventually removed and the March 13th guidance to be reinstated.