Trump admin says foreign students must leave US if classes go online

In a decision that will adversely impact hundreds of thousands of Indian students in the US, the federal immigration authority has announced that foreign students pursuing degrees in America will have to leave the country or risk deportation if their universities switch to online-only classes in this fall semester.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a press release on Monday that for the fall 2020 semester students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the US.

The US Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programmes that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States, the release said referring to the September to December semester.

The agency suggested that students currently enrolled in the US consider other measures, like transferring to schools with in-person instruction.

International students enrolled in academic programmes at US universities and colleges study on an F-1 visa and those enrolled in technical programmes at vocational or other recognised non-academic institutions, other than a language training programme come to the US on an M-1 visa.

India sent the largest number of students (251,290) to the US after China (478,732) in 2017 and 2018, according to the latest Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) 'SEVIS by the Numbers Report' 2018.

The number of students from India increased from 2017 to 2018 by 4,157.

According to immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta, the latest one-pager policy announcement means three things: Students enrolled in US universities that are moving to an online-only education model will be barred from getting F-1 visas, they will be stopped from entering the US on F-1 visas and not allowed to maintain F-1 status in the Fall semester.

PM Narendra Modi and Donald Trump during a meeting in 2019. File Photo

ICE is now turning the screws on universities to re-open despite the coronavirus roaring back across 40 of 50 states.

"So Trump is forcing foreign students to study in unsafe conditions during Covid-19", Mehta tweeted.

Fall 2020 semester begins early September in the US, immediately after Labor Day weekend. By that time, America's death toll is projected to have crossed the grim milestone of 170,000, according to at least a couple of predictive models.

The new policy incentivises in-person classes during the ongoing pandemic which has already killed 130,000 Americans. The ICE announcement comes amidst heated debate across the country on what the coming Fall school session is going to look like.

A vaccine against the coronavirus will not be available until at least year end or later.

The announcement leaves the door open for "hybrid" models of online plus in-person classes as a way for students to remain in the US.

It says, "Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools adopting a hybrid model, that is, a mixture of online and in person classes, will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online."