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Last-minute reprieve for International students 

International students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018. This is the story of how the goose that lays the golden eggs almost got deported…  

 

As part of the Trump Administration’s ongoing battle to end immigration, The ICE order  announced  the Department of State will not issue visas to international students enrolled in schools that are fully online for the 2020 fall semester, and that international students at such schools cannot take a full online course load and still remain in the US. There was a possibility of deportation for such students.

When Shreyvardhan Sharma, who is from New Delhi, made it to Harvard University, it was every aspiring student’s dream come true. But the dream almost turned into a nightmare—Sharma who had returned home for the summer, almost lost his visa status due to a ruling on July 6 by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The rule required international students studying online courses to leave the US.

Then came the news that  the Trump Administration had rescinded the rule.

If the rule was enforced, the doors of America may have become shut to Sharma and thousands of other international students who had become pawns in a callous political endgame by the Trump Administration. The students almost saw the prize snatched from before their very eyes.

The cause had nothing to do with immigration or education issues but with the re-election aspirations of President Trump and his anxiety to boost the economy by reopening schools and businesses, no matter what the health risks.

The ICE order announced the Department of State would not issue visas to international students enrolled in schools that are fully online for the 2020 fall semester, and that international students at such schools cannot take a full online course load and still remain in the US.

The order stated “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.”

For students like Shreyvardhan Sharma, the order was a no-win situation. With coronavirus still raging in India and the US, he simply could not board a flight to the US to attend on-campus classes—and if he stayed home in India to attend online classes, he would have been in danger of losing his visa status.

Referring to the consequences of the now rescinded ICE rule, immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta observed, “Students who attend schools that operate completely online would not be allowed to receive F-1 visas or enter in F-1 status or maintain F-1 status in fall 2020 semester. So, Trump was forcing foreign students to study in unsafe conditions during COVID-19.”

In a return salvo to ICE, both Harvard and MIT sued the federal government. MIT and Harvard jointly filed suit against ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security in a federal court in Massachusetts. According to the Harvard Gazette, Harvard President Larry Bacow, in an email to the community, had called the order a cruel and reckless attempt to pressure the schools to reopen “without regard to concerns for the health and safety of students, instructors, and others”.

MIT President Rapael Reif observed, “Our international students now have many questions—about their visas, their health, their families and their ability to continue working toward an MIT degree. Unspoken, but unmistakable, is one more question: Am I welcome? At MIT, the answer, unequivocally, is yes.”

Reif had emphasized, “MIT’s strength is its people—no matter where they come from. I know firsthand the anxiety of arriving in this country as a student, excited to advance my education, but separated from my family by thousands of miles. I also know that welcoming the world’s brightest, most talented and motivated students is an essential American strength.”

 

James Mathew, the president of the Harvard student body, had seen the plight of international students first-hand. Mathew, whose family hails from Kerala, was born in Chicago. He is a rising senior concentrating on sociology and global health. He pointed out about 12 per cent of the Harvard undergraduate student body were international students, and including the graduate schools at Harvard University, the figure jumped closer to 20 per cent. Mathew noted, “The international students are a very big part of the Harvard community. We’re particularly worried about the students who didn’t go home and it was really troubling to hear that they could be forced to go home and leave the country.”

The debate about the ICE rule was indeed a time of great stress for international students, many from India, who did not know what the future held. Indeed, the stakes were high. According to IIE.org (Power of International Education), the US currently has the highest number of foreign students, with over a million students: According to data from the US Department of Commerce, international students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018, an increase of 5.5 per cent from the previous year.

James Mathew, the student body president at Harvard, said the Harvard School Government had joined several other student governments in the amicus brief organised by the law firm Clifford Chance, and planned to continue supporting the international students. Mathew said that in the event that Harvard and MIT did not win the lawsuit, there would be need for Harvard, as an institution, to still try and make some accommodations to allow for the international students to stay in the country. Hesaid, “So that will be a conversation that we have in the future and be one where student voices and advocacy would become very important as well.”

Arhan Kumar is an international student from New Delhi living on campus at Harvard. Kumar is pursuing a bachelor of arts with a joint concentration in biological sciences and music. The curriculum itself is academic but he is an opera singer and has had vocal engagements on campus with very prominent groups such as the Harvard Choir and with singers who have performed at Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall. That he points out is a special plus of an American education, the impact of learning outside the classroom.

Referring to the impact of the ICE rule, Kumar had said “There were layers and layers of decisions, ahead of me and none of the alternatives were good alternatives. I had to decide whether I stayed here or went back… We worked so hard to get into a good college. And we get there. And then we’re stuck with this pandemic, which is bad enough, and then we’re struck by the government. So it really made you think whatever you’re pursuing here wasn’t even worth it.”

According to an analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy, programs at many US universities could not be maintained without the presence of international students.

As immigration lawyer & law professor Charles Kuck tweeted, “51.6 percent of international students in the United States pursued STEM fields in 2018/19. That is more than 500,000 students. Trump/Miller are killing the golden goose of the tech industry. Say goodbye to job growth.”

Yale Law School Dean Heather K. Gerkin, while condemning the ICE rule, in a message to the Yale community, wrote about the supportive faculty. “Every single one of them volunteered to offer an in-person, one-on-one tutorial to our international students so that they can continue with in-person learning and avoid deportation. One of my colleagues told me that he would teach outside in the snow if he needed to.”

Many thousands of international students across the country anxiously watched and waited for the legal battle over the ICE rule. For Arhan Kumar, the rule would have meant sacrificing his rich musical learning and hard-won scholarship to Harvard; leaving Boston, which is relatively coronavirus free, boarding a flight and landing in India, which has become a hotbed for the disease.

International students are heaving a collective sigh of relief with the last minute reprieve. Deportations and end of education are not on the agenda. Life will go on as usual – one hopes!

( This article appeared in The Week.in )