Push back against draconian U.S. Immigration rule
The Trump administration, after banning visas for foreign workers last month, has delivered another blow. New rules of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for foreign students in American universities say if their courses have moved entirely online for the Fall period, they cannot stay in the country anymore.
Fearing the continuing pandemic numbers in the US and the need for physical distancing, some of the universities have announced a mix of online and in-person classes for the coming season; but a number of prestigious institutions—Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers and Georgetown, among others—have announced mostly online courses. The ICE directive applies to the F-1 and M-1 category of visas that cover non-immigrant students in academic and vocational courses.
This new directive is likely to hit nearly a million foreign students. Of these, more than half are from Asia—3,70,000 from China, 2,02,000 from India and 52,000 from South Korea. Besides uprooting them midstream, the students, when they return home, are in a quandary whether or not to continue their US courses. The remote, online versions will not be much cheaper, with most universities barely offering discounts of 10% or thereabouts.
This new ICE directive is yet another example of Donald Trump using the cover of the Covid-19 pandemic to implement his anti-immigration programme. In a disturbed environment, is it necessary to uproot economically vulnerable foreign students? The US should reconsider the decision, considering it will have a serious impact on the economy of the universities. According to the Institute of International Education, Asian students in 2018 contributed as much as $25 billion to their kitty.
By now, with the spurt in enrolments, the figure would be much higher. Meanwhile, the new visa norms should hopefully move the US universities to rework their Fall courses to a more hybrid variety that includes both in-person as well as online attendance. India’s foreign ministry too should put pressure on the US administration to roll back this diktat, considering the large number of Indian students who are likely to be adversely affected.