Trump administration denies entry to foreign students enrolled for online-only classes in US

Newly-enrolled international students, many of them from India, would not be allowed to enter the United States (US) if their courses were to be taught online in the upcoming fall semester, the US agency that runs the student and exchange visitors visa programme said on Friday.

The fall semester starts in September.

“Non-immigrant students in new or initial status after March 9 will not be able to enter the US to enroll in a US school as a non-immigrant student for the fall term to pursue a full course of study that is 100% online,” said the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) in a statement.

It directed authorised universities to not issue Form 1-20s to newly-enrolled students if their classes were to be online only. These documents are required by international students to apply for student visa.

March 9, the cut-off date, is when ICE issued guidelines allowing non-immigrant foreign students to continue to stay in the country and pursue their classes online, wholly, as required by the universities, making an exception in view of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) from a rule under which foreigners are not issued student visas for online-only classes.

The number of foreign students impacted by this order could not be immediately ascertained.

There were nearly 270,000 new foreign students enrolled in graduate, under-graduate and non-degree courses for the academic session starting 2019 fall, according to Open Doors, a standard resource on international students.

India is the second-largest source of foreign students in the US, with around 200,000, of an estimated 1 million in all.

This new order came just days after the Donald Trump administration rescinded a controversial order that would have led to the deportation of non-immigrant international students if their courses were being held fully online in the fall semester, a preventative measure adopted by many institutions as they reopen after a prolonged Covid-19-enforced break.

To stay in the US, these foreign students would have had to ensure a majority of their courses were conducted in-person and if that was not offered by their institution, transfer to one that did.

The universities are being extra vigilant, as the US is reporting a second surge in Covid-19 cases and fatalities.

Harvard University, for instance, has declared its fall classes will be all online. It is not even allowing all its students to return to their on-campus accommodations.

Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had challenged that earlier order in a lawsuit that was eventually joined by over 200 universities.

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator, and former presidential candidate, had weighed in with a stinging denunciation. It is “dangerous & xenophobic”, she had written in a tweet and had gone on to compare the order to the travel ban the president had ordered targeting people from certain countries, called the “Muslim travel ban”.

The Trump administration told a Boston court at the first oral arguments in the case it was rescinding the order.

But the administration is not done with foreign students evidently. It is understood to be considering suspending OPT (Optional Practical Training), a temporary post-graduation work authorisation foreign students use as a stepping stone to H-1B visa, and, eventually, Green Cards and citizenship.

And now this.

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