@ucbalumnus , Oops, you are right, I shouldn’t write from memory. What the WSJ actually said was “International students account for more than 15% or 20% of enrollment at some universities, but a larger share of tuition revenue.” It’s a big number in any event.
The universities have to certify to ICE that the foreign students are registered and accounted for. The article gave the two dates by which colleges must file their paperwork with ICE (one for online, one for hybrid) Do you think that if a school fights the government that their next batch of students will get visas? They also have to certify what they are offering as far as online, hybrid, or in-person classes. I don’t think they’ll get away with ‘requiring’ internationals to take a basket weaving class when it is not part of the current curriculum and not required for domestic students. Labs? Languages? Yes, but if these classes HAVE to be taken on campus, why is the university allowing domestic or some international students to take them online? Why would in person classes not be offered to domestic students?
The largest percentage of those in the US illegally are here because they overstayed their visas. Not all student visas, but some were. If students overstay their visas, they become ineligible for another visas (like a H1b) or for citizenship. Disney drives their international college program students to the airport and makes sure they get on their planes home. Disney is responsible for those visas it sponsored, just like the colleges are for their students.
I don’t think ICE will be going on campuses and hauling students off to the airport. will issue a deportation order, and if the student ignores it, ICE will tag the passport/visa and deny future entry to the US, and may require the college to answer for its failure to supervise. It is really hard to live permanently undocumented with no way to cure the status.
Many colleges are open for F2F classes. It would be really hard to transfer but schools that do not want to open could make arrangements with schools that are open to have the student do a semester exchange. MIT isn’t offering live classes? Make an arrangement with UMass Boston for certain classes to be transferable or for UMass to provide the class to MIT students (a professor and a place to take the class). It is a lot easier to push paperwork through at the college level than at the federal government level. @homerdog said the Bowdoin does not accept credits from other schools. Bowdoin could change THAT policy a lot easier than changing a federal rule or reg.
Nice explanation. Honestly as you could tell, had no clue. Can’t believe though changes can’t be made to accommodate these students. Don’t like the America the world sees.
I think a lot of schools are scrambling to deal with this. It’s so late in the day for both schools and students to make changes. I don’t think it would be that hard at all for the government to extend the exemption for another semester, if they wanted to do that, but they have made it clear that this move is expressly intended to pressure the colleges into opening. From a CNN interview: “Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli said Tuesday that the department’s provision requiring international students to take in-person classes or return home for the fall semester will encourage U.S. schools to reopen campuses.”
This is becoming clearer to me. I’m seeing a lot of articles with the theme “administration presses for schools to reopen in the fall”, and the above quote fits in with that. It’s kind of a win-win for them, either open up, whether you feel you’re ready or not, or we get to rid the US of a few more foreigners.
The powers that be want very badly to project a sense of “everything is back to normal, nothing to see here folks, just move along, V shaped rocket ship blah blah blah”, and opening schools in the fall is a big part of that. In a way it’s blackmail, which I understand that governments (even ours) do all the time, but in the context of the times, this seems especially obnoxious, like kicking you when you’re down.
Buckle up, we are in for a very strange ride over the next several months.
@ThisNameNotTaken , agree, this is particularly obnoxious, using financial/political leverage to get the schools to act against their better judgment. I hope it all works out. I’m sending my international-but-US citizen kid back to the US in August with my fingers crossed!
Didn’t almost all schools announce their graduate students would be back to campus? It sounds like this problem affects primarily undergrads (which is still serious and needs to be solved).
Yes, the more I read about this it’s clear this was a political choice where basically the administration is trying to hold (paying!) international students hostage in order to try to influence colleges’ re-opening decisions. So wrong.
In good news, I saw a tweet this morning by an administrator watching a live spreadsheet where domestic students at her university were volunteering to give up their spots in a hybrid or f2f class to an international student. Young people will save this country.
Also, legal challenge filed.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/7/8/harvard-mit-sue-immigration-authorities/
@roycroftmom no, many schools are not having grad students back on campus and/or are having grad work online. Most of Harvard’s professional grad schools, for example, have gone online.
This announcement seems to be part of the administration’s denial that the pandemic continues. Everything is fine. Return to normal policy. The administration is also pressuring public k-12 to reopen normally. We are not allowed to be political, right? So I edited my post here. But I will say there are parallels in history to what we are seeing in terms of politics affecting lives.
This announcement also ignores the fact that many international students are currently IN the US. Grad/doctoral students have apartments and are settled for the years they are here, and in some cases beyond school.
@twoinanddone mentioned UMass- they are also online and so students cannot switch to UMass as a solution as suggested.
So two things being expressed here:
- the pandemic is over and everything needs to return to normal
- international students are being discouraged as part of an anti-immigrant administration
The talents and contributions of our international students, including MD’s and others who stay, should be honored.
And the pandemic is far from over. Instead, it appears it is just getting started.
This policy is cruel.
But it’s being done for the same reason that anything in politics is done for, to get votes.
Roughly 40% of the country (at least) is all in with this stuff, and that’s the really scary part.
I distinguish between graduate and professional students. Very different types of student bodies.
I would expect the best basis for a legal challenge is if ICE failed to follow the APA in terminating its temporary suspension of the usual rules. If so, that should qualify for a temporary injunction against enforcement, at least. Whether ICE did do, I have no idea.
yes @roycroft mom, due to the termination of other threads, I was trying to avoid politics and, frankly, any mention of, um, personal pathology driving politics.
Pretending everything can safely go back to normal also affects the economy and stock market, in some people’s views, and therefore votes. (Clearly the solution is to stop testing so the pandemic goes away.)
Yes it is scary. My kid thinks that our state in NE should secede 
That is interesting but I am unclear as to what it has to do with the likelihood of success of a legal challenge to the ICE rule. There needs to be a basis for the challenge, and APA appears to be the only one. Courts don’t rule on whether they like regulations, just on whether they are legally grounded.
I have always thought US history courses should cover this more in high school.
Many grad students are also Teaching Assistants, already planned for Fall. How will this affect departments if they lose their TA staffs?
ETA: What is the APA, for those of us in the cheap seats?
As further support that this is a political ploy by the federal administration to force schools to return in person in the fall in order to bolster the optics for the president in his re-election bid
The Administrative Procedure Act (APA) governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations. It includes requirements for publishing notices of proposed and final rulemaking in the Federal Register, and provides opportunities for the public to comment on notices of proposed rulemaking.
Again, I wrote the same as the above post about “bolstering the optics” for reelection but edited for fear of being deleted. I am unclear on what we are allowed, honestly, before being deleted.
Apparently Harvard and MIT have already filed a suit and other schools will follow.
I would think there is a precedent for suspension of the normal rule that international students can’t take all online classes while in the US. The precedent was set this spring when schools switched to online due to COVID.
I would think it would have to be proven that COVID is over for this policy to stand now.
The task force just had a briefing, most of which I missed, but Pence elaborated on how they want public schools open too.
APA is Administrative Procedures Act, the way rules and regs are put into place by government agencies.
It is a law suit drafted overnight and claims the rules are cruel and not fair. Not really a legal argument. The rules aren’t new so the govt didn’t skip APA procedures to set them up. It is going to be a hard argument for Harvard and MIT to win. Might get a TRO but that’s risky as if it is overturned, the students could be sent home mid-semester.
The schools can argue it is impossible to comply, but other schools are complying so it is not impossible. The schools think their plans are better than schools that are planning F2F classes, but each plan has consequences.
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The president undermining public health officials and dismissing legitimate precautions to safely re-open schools is NOT helping college and school administrators and boards that trying to make very difficult decisions under difficult conditions.
And I find it rich that the same administration that refused to bring to bear the full resources of our federal government to create a coordinated strategy to combat COVID now wants to micro-manage colleges and local education. Sigh.