ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

Such pathetic leadership. International students already in the country must now either attend an in person class and risk their lives, or fly out from the country with the highest number of infections and spread it to their friends and family at home. Not to mention the loss to the research community.<p>I can’t see anything that is to be gained from this, other than pandering to a xenophobic voter base.

&gt; <i>Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States ... Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures ...</i><p>This is going to ruin so many lives. An example of how this could result is significant hardship for international students is the case of Iranian students.<p>Iran has mandatory military service for all male citizens ages 18 and over. People who are students can defer their military service until their studies have concluded. If the studies are outside of Iran, the <i>temporary exemption from military service for the purpose of education</i> status allows students to be present in Iran for a maximum of 3 months per year (approximate length of the summer intermission, so students can have some vacation and visit their family). Stays longer than that are deemed to be at odds with being an active student in a foreign institution, so if a student is present in Iran for longer than that, they are deemed to no longer be a student—the exemption is invalidated and the person has to go through two years of military service before they are allowed to leave the country again.<p>Any male Iranian student who is forced to leave the US due to this directive is effectively expelled from their program. I am sure this is not a unique situation. There are likely many other such edge cases that affect certain demographics of students. I hope they reverse their decision, otherwise so many careers will end before they even begin.

As some have pointed out elsewhere, the idea that &quot;they can just do the courses remotely from their home country&quot; has some issues:<p>- live classes may happen in the middle of the night<p>- tools like GSuite are blocked in China<p>- internet connection quality varies<p>Given the amount of revenue foreign students bring in, this seems like the admin is using access to those students as a lever to force schools to reopen prematurely.

Most relevant part:<p>&quot;Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status. If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.&quot;<p>I wonder if the Harvard decision today will be modified in response to this. I imagine their international students, especially in graduate studies, must be highly impacted.

This has become so absolutely stupid at this point. I can even maybe understand this for future admissions. But from the messaging it looks like they want to deport students who came after a valid visa process. This is just absurd.<p>I hope unis do a hybrid thing like CMU, otherwise it is a lot of pain for students who are already here.

This reads like &quot;open your campuses or go fuck yourself&quot;. International students make up 6% of all the students in the US with certain institutions probably averaging very large numbers of international students.<p>This is the sad current state of affairs in this country. A pandemic became a political weapon.

This is lunacy. Also likely will fail in court since it doesn’t follow proper procedures - something the recent Supreme Court DACA ruling pointed out. These nitwits are cruel and incompetent. But all of this has damaged America’s higher education system and its attractiveness to foreign students for the long term. Many an economics PhD thesis will model GDP lost from doing everything in our power to scare away educated immigrants.

This also pressures universities to have in person classes regardless of the safety of that practice. Universities want to support their students, and indeed one of the draws of many university programs for international students is the entry into the visa system for employment in the U.S. One effect of this policy is to push universities to NOT be in the online-only category, even if it means risking lives by a policy the school would have otherwise preferred to avoid.

I don’t understand how universities think they can get away with charging full tuition to students while offering online only classes. I would be so furious if I was stuck in this situation of trying to graduate on time but being scammed out of the whole experience I worked so hard to get in to.<p>If the schools feel so strongly against reopening they should waive their tuition for anyone already enrolled to attend online and close enrollment to new students, and give anyone the option to defer if desired.<p>I don’t blame ICE for not extending their exemption past the summer for online classes. The visa does not allow for online courses. Schools are not making an evidence based decision here, and should not expect special treatment if they aren’t willing to offer actual classes. I hope the students who are suing will prevail in court for unjust enrichment.

&gt;Nonimmigrant F-1 students attending schools operating under normal in-person classes are bound by existing federal regulations. Eligible F students may take a maximum of one class or three credit hours online.<p>This pretty nuts. From what I understand, even schools that are allowing everyone on campus will have a majority of their classes online or have them be up to the discretion of professors.<p>This may keep the vast majority of international students out of the US.

I had hoped my university (Brown) would follow Harvard&#x27;s suit and err on the side of remote instruction this coming year. With this policy announcement, the chances of that dwindle.<p>Brown had made special accommodations to allow their international students to remain in dorms over this summer. By eliminating extraneous travel, these accommodations were in the best interest of both these students and the general public. Who is served by expelling them!?

This will further encourage universities to offer in-person instruction. Paying top dollar for a sub-par online education is not what students are after.

Chinese students will be safer in China. Bad news for US universities that built dorms and counted on the cash from foreign students. Now they can&#x27;t come. Many families viewed studying in the US as a pathway to eventual residence. That&#x27;s gone, at least until there&#x27;s a new administration.

the clown single handedly destroyed this country

Can someone offer a sensible reason for this policy? I am trying to look for anything that would make it not look like an outright political decision, but I can&#x27;t.

If I were a school I&#x27;d be finding as many possible loopholes as possible.<p>One minute a semester in-person instruction per course, for starters.

This is intended to punish foreign students - either move to an unsafe university or get out and reset your visa. With a government that’s decided to block visa applications arbitrarily.<p>Alternatively universities have to reopen to people so that it looks like they agree with the absurd demands of the current administration to open earlier than they should.

I wonder how they feel about foreigners now working from home...

Any prospective international student reading this should REALLY reconsider education in the US. The administration is using everyone as pawns in a massive game of vote pandering.<p>It&#x27;s hard enough to study hard and achieve goals. Why come here where you will be treated like unwanted foreigners at best and asylees who should be arrested at worst?

is there at least a countdown clock somewhere that marks the remaining time until this is challenged in federal district court?

#abolish_ice

It&#x27;s likely continued xenophobia from (the one non-family senior advisor to Trump):<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Stephen_Miller_(political_advisor)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Stephen_Miller_(political_advi...</a>

My hunch:<p>Trump hates universities. So he’ll do anything to ensure universities are on life support. This is a great way for him to bring the uncertainties to follow his orders.

This is a trick.<p>Trump is telling universities to open up for in person classes or lose all their international students, who will mostly choose universities that have in-person classes over online classes after ICE&#x27;s ruling.<p>This is a diabolical move, arm twisting universities into opening up or else losing international students - a major sources of revenue.

I doubt this decision is coming from the WH. It&#x27;s a very simple calculation made by an agency with different priorities from what might be represented here in this forum.<p>You have thousands of foreigners, a large portion of which might not be in the country, waiting to return to the US to continue their studies. Many of those countries don&#x27;t even allow US travelers to arrive at this time. Everybody is urging for caution, but that there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of individuals preparing to arrive back here, with possible infections, is something an agency might be concerned about. So naturally, why not prevent this travel from happening in the first place with a policy like that?<p>Of course it&#x27;s a heavy handed approach, but so are the lock-downs and closed schools. So we go to great length trying to prevent the spread, we close schools for over 4 month, and some don&#x27;t even want schools open in the fall, but somehow an influx of half a million students is something nobody should be concerned about?<p>Those are valid discussions to be had. Assuming right away that this is a way to force universities to open is not a very genuine way of thinking. You cannot encourage full online classes for health reasons, and applaud that on Monday, and on Tuesday complain we don&#x27;t allow students from all over the world to return just to sit in front of a computer.<p>Everybody is laser focused on these case numbers, and some states will close schools due to high case counts in the fall, impacting millions of families. If you support that, you should probably also support any measures possible to keep case counts low, including discouraging international travel.