10 ms·

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

196 points by kediz 6y ago

Balgair 6y ago
Most relevant part: "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." 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.
- chanmad29 6y ago
  Probably international students will now attend in person classes and others will be fully remote. Weird to even think that such drastic changes are all happening during a pandemic.
  - novok 6y ago
    International students attend classes in separate rooms, looking at live video feed.
    - nick_kline 6y ago
      What a mess. There will be schools that have confusing plans, ICE won't quite get that student A is in program B that followed plan C and now they switched to D so something something. Just another piece of terror for all those students to deal with, worrying about immigration confusion.
  - golem14 6y ago
    Agree. I wonder what is the rationale for all this. Other than plain old xenophobia. Will this reduce pandemic ? No, it will incentivize colleges to offer in-person classes promoting COVID. Will this reduce students on non-immigration visas ? Not sure it does (students might find in-person classes somewhere). Some students might just say 'fuck it' and study elsewhere. Maybe that's good for them. Will this reduce unemployment? Maybe. But I'm doubtful. Most F1 students are barred from working off campus other than internships, and I doubt on-campus work and internships make a dent in unemployment.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cm2187 6y ago
      Plain old xenophobia? How about double digit unemployment rate? We can debate the means. But I can understand why Trump would want to cut down on immigration. Now a good question is whether there will be unemployment among highly educated people with STEM degrees, who were in hot demand only a few weeks ago, and if not this is counterproductive. But every economic indicator seems to point at a major recession (beyond a technical recession during the lockdown). I would assume everyone will be impacted.
      - throwgeorge 6y ago
        what exactly do students on F and M visas have to do with employment? they can't work to begin with.
      - umanwizard 6y ago
        Students on F1 visas are not immigrants, and in general can’t stay after their studies are over (with a limited-time exception via OPT status), unless they get a different type of visa.
        cm2187 6y ago
        All my friends who emigrated to the US did so from an F1 visa (followed by a work visa sometime during their first year of employment). Of course it is a source of immigration.
        golem14 6y ago
        +1. I believe a lot of (if not most) people come to the US not only for the education system, but to have a good chance of getting the green card and eventually citizenship. I don't think that's bad for any party - the US gets access to very smart and enterprising young people (and can grow the edu market), and those people get access to the US. Making studying and converting F1=H1b->green card process harder is going to have significant drawbacks, such as * shrinking edu market will itself negatively affect the economy. * Now that FAANG etc have seen that work-from-home can really work out, I expect ever more hiring outside of the US in the future. That doesn't mean that jobs will be opening up in the US. * Harder to find qualified people in the US. [Remaining US workers in STEM can anticipate ever higher wages?] These drawbacks will take some time to materialize, so it's possible to use this argument (less immigration == more work) during campaigning and deal with the fallout later (or pawn it off to the democrats. Or silently walk back the rules after the election). Maybe one good thing to come out of this change would be the need to press for domestic STEM education more and earlier.
  - iandanforth 6y ago
    The students may not have that choice. Professors are equally worried about their health and that of their students and are trying hard not to be in classrooms.
    - nick_kline 6y ago
      There's no perfect solution and many conflicting needs. 1. The health needs of students and professors, some part of them are vulnerable, plus the normal health considerations of covid-19 2. The learning needs of students, plenty may struggle to succeed in an entirely online world. It might be required by reality, but there will be new difficulties for people. 3. Financial needs of the school - they still have to pay for classrooms, office space, dorms, the campus, even if they aren't using it right then 4. Financial needs of the student - they might have financial aid from the school or other sources, how does it apply when the school is remote or unclear, what if things change, what do you pay, what does your scholarship cover? 5. And now immigration clarity. That student might need to be in the us for other reasons - if it's grad school, your relationship with your advisor used to be crucial. Now you'll never have a chance to see them in person. No one wants to be terrified of being deported for violating a rule or the govt confused about their status. The school might close down with little notice, what happens to that person who can't afford to fly back overseas?
jswrenn 6y ago
I had hoped my university (Brown) would follow Harvard's suit and err on the side of remote instruction this coming year. With this policy announcement, the chances of that dwindle. 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!?
- gumby 6y ago
  > Who is served by expelling them!? The nativist agenda.
actuator 6y ago
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. I hope unis do a hybrid thing like CMU, otherwise it is a lot of pain for students who are already here.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
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.
olliej 6y ago
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. 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.
- murph-almighty 6y ago
  And this is how you piss off a bunch of 18-23 year olds who may have had foreign friends impacted by this. Maybe this gets the youth vote out?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Do you think they're not already pissed?
  - foogazi 6y ago
    OTOH maybe their friends couldn’t get in because the spot went to a student in a visa
paulgb 6y ago
As some have pointed out elsewhere, the idea that "they can just do the courses remotely from their home country" has some issues: - live classes may happen in the middle of the night - tools like GSuite are blocked in China - internet connection quality varies 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.
- Shank 6y ago
  There's also the sad reality that for many students, it's not possible to work unimpeded on school work at home. For many, university is the a psychological retreat from home circumstances that are distracting at best the best of times and downright abusive at the worst. It doesn't matter if your Internet is solid if you can't actually focus on the work.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Post quals grad students are going to be hard pressed to get a PCR machine, vivarium, or fluoroscope up and running in their parent's house. You know, machines vital to figuring out covid vaccines. I've no idea how most of them will get any quality lab-bench research done. It pretty much nukes them.
    - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
      Campuses are going to be closed in the Fall. Nobody is going to have access to those things.
      - Balgair 6y ago
        I know a few grad students at 'closed' campuses currently. Though the admin says the labs are off limits, the PIs are turning blind eyes to it. The labs are effectively open.
        VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
kkaranth 6y ago
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. I can’t see anything that is to be gained from this, other than pandering to a xenophobic voter base.
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  You may be interested in reading the president's thoughtful policy proposal here: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280209946085339136 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12802099460853391...
- diogenescynic 6y ago
  Are any universities even offering in person classes? I doubt it. This seems designed/intended to chase away immigrants.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > This seems designed/intended to chase away immigrants. No, it's designed to chase away non-immigrant student visa holders. But it's part of a broader set of policies designed to make the US hostile to foreigners, whether current visa holders, non-immigrants visa applicants, or immigrant visa applicants.
    - RhysU 6y ago
      Or, it could be designed to encourage universities to hold in person classes. In particular, to pressure those universities that have business models relying on foreign student tuition.
  - Shebanator 6y ago
    Many universities are planning to have at least some of their classes be in-person this fall. My daughter was just admitted to Seattle U, and they expect her to be moving into her dorm in about a month. I am mostly expecting this to be cancelled, though.
benologist 6y ago
I wonder how they feel about foreigners now working from home...
pseingatl 6y ago
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't come. Many families viewed studying in the US as a pathway to eventual residence. That's gone, at least until there's a new administration.
- tantalor 6y ago
  > until there's a new administration 197 days...
  - dariusj18 6y ago
    https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=Time%20left%20until%20a%20new%20administration&p0=263&year=2021&month=1&day=20&hour=12&min=0&sec=0 https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=Time%20left%20u...
- booboolayla 6y ago
  >Many families viewed studying in the US as a pathway to eventual residence. I thought they were coming for education? Now we're lamenting that they can't move their whole family to the US?
theseawolf 6y ago
This is a trick. 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's ruling. This is a diabolical move, arm twisting universities into opening up or else losing international students - a major sources of revenue.
contemporary343 6y ago
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.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > These nitwits are cruel and incompetent. This is why I'm afraid of Pence getting President in the event Trump catches corona or has a heart attack or whatever. Or for whatever the Republicans put up after Trump. Because right now the only thing that keeps this administration from doing massive unrepairable damage is their own incompetence because Trump took a bunch of yes men as his advisors and Cabinet. A government filled by someone with the malice of the current Republicans and the competence of actual professionals? Good night democracy.
zaroth 6y ago
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. 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. 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.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  > I don’t blame ICE for not extending their exemption past the summer for online classes. 1. difficulty of returning home 2. risk of pandemic spread by returning home 3. internet connectivity issues 4. timezone issues 5. software availability issues 6. home suitability for studying 7. .... "I don't blame ICE". Destroy ICE. This is appalling. When I became a citizen 3 years ago, I told people that one motivation was that I was very very slightly afraid of Trump even though I was a white european permanent resident of 28 years. It's only taken 3 years to get to where I'd say "not imminently but genuinely afraid" for that sort of immigration status.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    The schools really should have thought through of all this before canceling classes on all their students who depend so much on attending them. There’s no excuse for outright canceling classes. Classes can absolutely be held safely, if these universities simply chose to invest in the training, procedures, and equipment necessary to do so. Instead they chose to bank their tuition payments and setup a Zoom call. This is not a new policy, student visas have never allowed for online classes, and the universities certainly knew this. I think the blame pretty clearly lies with schools who decided to close up shop.
christiansakai 6y ago
the clown single handedly destroyed this country
nine_zeros 6y ago
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. It'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?
- Fauntleroy 6y ago
  My partner has been struggling with the US immigration system her entire stay here. With this administration things have gone even further downhill. They're violently, cruelly dedicated to the idea of shutting down immigration and dying a slow intellectual death.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  International students should simply avoid America all together. There are too many risks, consequences, and pitfalls to make it worth wild.
  - 0xFFC 6y ago
    Sadly I made that decision few years ago and I regret it. I came into Canada, and from what I see, industry and research is not even close to USA.
    - nine_zeros 6y ago
      > Sadly I made that decision few years ago and I regret it. I came into Canada, and from what I see, industry and research is not even close to USA. All the research and industry in the US is shattered. Even if it isn't, the administration is making sure it won't be accessible to you. Don't have a view a America with rose tinted eyes. The America of the past is gone, all vanished in the last 4 years.
whoisjuan 6y ago
This reads like "open your campuses or go fuck yourself". International students make up 6% of all the students in the US with certain institutions probably averaging very large numbers of international students. This is the sad current state of affairs in this country. A pandemic became a political weapon.
- airstrike 6y ago
  At Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, currently ranked the third best business school in the country, 32% of students are international. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/programs/full-time-mba/student-culture/class-profile.aspx https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/programs/full-time-mba/...
- hawngyeedun 6y ago
  I don't see anything to be gained from this call other than solidifying the current administration political stance. Unless I'm missing something, this seems to be an incredibly destructive decision creates little to no benefits to the American society... For instance, that "6% of all students" alone contributes a great deal to the US economy: > According to the Commerce Department, international students contributed $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506072-ice-tells-students-on-visas-they-must-leave-us-if-schools-go-online https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506072-ice-tells...
PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
is there at least a countdown clock somewhere that marks the remaining time until this is challenged in federal district court?
dzdt 6y ago
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.
smnrchrds 6y ago
> 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 ... 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. 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 temporary exemption from military service for the purpose of education 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. 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.
- foolfoolz 6y ago
  the u. s. is not the only country in the world
  - aaomidi 6y ago
    Do you understand the amount of money spent to be able to immigrate to a country? Or to be able to pick a country to do your studies in? It literally sucks life savings of families.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  I feel so bad for my Iranian brothers and sisters :(. The IRR keeps losing more and more value, which means if they were getting help from home it keeps getting more and more expensive to be able to afford to live here. And then on top of that they have to worry about piece of shits running this country that give no regard to their lives.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.
- VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
  Campuses and dormitories are closed though. Where are these people supposed to live?
  - mrlala 6y ago
    They invented these things called apartments, they are pretty cool.
    - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
      Do you think the average college town has enough apartments to house the 40,000+ students displaced by the closing of the university domitories?
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    If they really did have nowhere to live, and no funds, they would take the option to leave themselves. This policy takes away an option at least some of them would otherwise have. I'm very left-wing, but I think that anyone (left or rigth) on the libertarian section of the political compass should oppose a move like this kind of government policy.
    - sukilot 6y ago
      Of course libertarians are for open borders.
- CerealFounder 6y ago
  Its worse, its bad business.
purple_ferret 6y ago
>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. 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. This may keep the vast majority of international students out of the US.
- pdabbadabba 6y ago
  > schools that are allowing everyone on campus will have a majority of their classes online That would make it not a "school[] operating under normal in-person classes" but rather a "school[] adopting a hybrid model." No?
- esalman 6y ago
  A vast majority of international students already admitted into the fall semester are already looking for alternatives because 1) coronavirus situation in the US and 2) US embassies being shut down in many affected countries.
ilyaeck 6y ago
#abolish_ice
calvinbhai 6y ago
My hunch: 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.
eiji 6y ago
I doubt this decision is coming from the WH. It's a very simple calculation made by an agency with different priorities from what might be represented here in this forum. 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'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? Of course it'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't even want schools open in the fall, but somehow an influx of half a million students is something nobody should be concerned about? 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't allow students from all over the world to return just to sit in front of a computer. 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.
- aaomidi 6y ago
  > 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. Seems like someone didn't read the OP.
  - eiji 6y ago
    I read that. And again, this is a policy. You are not thinking this through, in my opinion. Think about this in a way an accountable official would think. Most universities don't know what they will do yet in the fall. If you make an exemption for people who are currently already in the country, what would that solve? It would artificially pick those students over those who happened to travel home for the summer. You can't do that. That would probably make such a rule unlawful. So you have to craft such a "heavy handed" rule in such a way that it doesn't have loop holes that can be exploited. Don't think lawyers didn't review this exemption for weeks. And my earlier points still stand. I'm not trying to convince people that this rule is all that good. But understand where it comes from, and don't think it's all because of a particular administration. There is certainly logic to this rule. You may not agree with it, but I might not agree with closed schools either.
tmsh 6y ago
It's likely continued xenophobia from (the one non-family senior advisor to Trump): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_advisor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_advi...
IvyMike 6y ago
If I were a school I'd be finding as many possible loopholes as possible. One minute a semester in-person instruction per course, for starters.
- njovin 6y ago
  *with the instructor being remote :) I’m completely in favor of this guerilla approach to fighting stupid knee jerk policy changes.
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
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't.
- Simulacra 6y ago
  As Speaker Pelosi said: Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.

196 points by kediz 6y ago

Most relevant part: "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." 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.

chanmad29 6y ago
Probably international students will now attend in person classes and others will be fully remote. Weird to even think that such drastic changes are all happening during a pandemic.
- novok 6y ago
  International students attend classes in separate rooms, looking at live video feed.
  - nick_kline 6y ago
    What a mess. There will be schools that have confusing plans, ICE won't quite get that student A is in program B that followed plan C and now they switched to D so something something. Just another piece of terror for all those students to deal with, worrying about immigration confusion.
- golem14 6y ago
  Agree. I wonder what is the rationale for all this. Other than plain old xenophobia. Will this reduce pandemic ? No, it will incentivize colleges to offer in-person classes promoting COVID. Will this reduce students on non-immigration visas ? Not sure it does (students might find in-person classes somewhere). Some students might just say 'fuck it' and study elsewhere. Maybe that's good for them. Will this reduce unemployment? Maybe. But I'm doubtful. Most F1 students are barred from working off campus other than internships, and I doubt on-campus work and internships make a dent in unemployment.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cm2187 6y ago
    Plain old xenophobia? How about double digit unemployment rate? We can debate the means. But I can understand why Trump would want to cut down on immigration. Now a good question is whether there will be unemployment among highly educated people with STEM degrees, who were in hot demand only a few weeks ago, and if not this is counterproductive. But every economic indicator seems to point at a major recession (beyond a technical recession during the lockdown). I would assume everyone will be impacted.
    - throwgeorge 6y ago
      what exactly do students on F and M visas have to do with employment? they can't work to begin with.
    - umanwizard 6y ago
      Students on F1 visas are not immigrants, and in general can’t stay after their studies are over (with a limited-time exception via OPT status), unless they get a different type of visa.
      - cm2187 6y ago
        All my friends who emigrated to the US did so from an F1 visa (followed by a work visa sometime during their first year of employment). Of course it is a source of immigration.
        golem14 6y ago
        +1. I believe a lot of (if not most) people come to the US not only for the education system, but to have a good chance of getting the green card and eventually citizenship. I don't think that's bad for any party - the US gets access to very smart and enterprising young people (and can grow the edu market), and those people get access to the US. Making studying and converting F1=H1b->green card process harder is going to have significant drawbacks, such as * shrinking edu market will itself negatively affect the economy. * Now that FAANG etc have seen that work-from-home can really work out, I expect ever more hiring outside of the US in the future. That doesn't mean that jobs will be opening up in the US. * Harder to find qualified people in the US. [Remaining US workers in STEM can anticipate ever higher wages?] These drawbacks will take some time to materialize, so it's possible to use this argument (less immigration == more work) during campaigning and deal with the fallout later (or pawn it off to the democrats. Or silently walk back the rules after the election). Maybe one good thing to come out of this change would be the need to press for domestic STEM education more and earlier.
- iandanforth 6y ago
  The students may not have that choice. Professors are equally worried about their health and that of their students and are trying hard not to be in classrooms.
  - nick_kline 6y ago
    There's no perfect solution and many conflicting needs. 1. The health needs of students and professors, some part of them are vulnerable, plus the normal health considerations of covid-19 2. The learning needs of students, plenty may struggle to succeed in an entirely online world. It might be required by reality, but there will be new difficulties for people. 3. Financial needs of the school - they still have to pay for classrooms, office space, dorms, the campus, even if they aren't using it right then 4. Financial needs of the student - they might have financial aid from the school or other sources, how does it apply when the school is remote or unclear, what if things change, what do you pay, what does your scholarship cover? 5. And now immigration clarity. That student might need to be in the us for other reasons - if it's grad school, your relationship with your advisor used to be crucial. Now you'll never have a chance to see them in person. No one wants to be terrified of being deported for violating a rule or the govt confused about their status. The school might close down with little notice, what happens to that person who can't afford to fly back overseas?

jswrenn 6y ago

I had hoped my university (Brown) would follow Harvard's suit and err on the side of remote instruction this coming year. With this policy announcement, the chances of that dwindle. 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!?

gumby 6y ago
> Who is served by expelling them!? The nativist agenda.

actuator 6y ago

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. I hope unis do a hybrid thing like CMU, otherwise it is a lot of pain for students who are already here.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

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.

olliej 6y ago

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. 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.

murph-almighty 6y ago
And this is how you piss off a bunch of 18-23 year olds who may have had foreign friends impacted by this. Maybe this gets the youth vote out?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Do you think they're not already pissed?
- foogazi 6y ago
  OTOH maybe their friends couldn’t get in because the spot went to a student in a visa

paulgb 6y ago

As some have pointed out elsewhere, the idea that "they can just do the courses remotely from their home country" has some issues: - live classes may happen in the middle of the night - tools like GSuite are blocked in China - internet connection quality varies 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.

Shank 6y ago
There's also the sad reality that for many students, it's not possible to work unimpeded on school work at home. For many, university is the a psychological retreat from home circumstances that are distracting at best the best of times and downright abusive at the worst. It doesn't matter if your Internet is solid if you can't actually focus on the work.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Post quals grad students are going to be hard pressed to get a PCR machine, vivarium, or fluoroscope up and running in their parent's house. You know, machines vital to figuring out covid vaccines. I've no idea how most of them will get any quality lab-bench research done. It pretty much nukes them.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    Campuses are going to be closed in the Fall. Nobody is going to have access to those things.
    - Balgair 6y ago
      I know a few grad students at 'closed' campuses currently. Though the admin says the labs are off limits, the PIs are turning blind eyes to it. The labs are effectively open.
      - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago

kkaranth 6y ago

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. I can’t see anything that is to be gained from this, other than pandering to a xenophobic voter base.

ciarannolan 6y ago
You may be interested in reading the president's thoughtful policy proposal here: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1280209946085339136 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12802099460853391...
diogenescynic 6y ago
Are any universities even offering in person classes? I doubt it. This seems designed/intended to chase away immigrants.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This seems designed/intended to chase away immigrants. No, it's designed to chase away non-immigrant student visa holders. But it's part of a broader set of policies designed to make the US hostile to foreigners, whether current visa holders, non-immigrants visa applicants, or immigrant visa applicants.
  - RhysU 6y ago
    Or, it could be designed to encourage universities to hold in person classes. In particular, to pressure those universities that have business models relying on foreign student tuition.
- Shebanator 6y ago
  Many universities are planning to have at least some of their classes be in-person this fall. My daughter was just admitted to Seattle U, and they expect her to be moving into her dorm in about a month. I am mostly expecting this to be cancelled, though.

benologist 6y ago

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

pseingatl 6y ago

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't come. Many families viewed studying in the US as a pathway to eventual residence. That's gone, at least until there's a new administration.

tantalor 6y ago
> until there's a new administration 197 days...
- dariusj18 6y ago
  https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=Time%20left%20until%20a%20new%20administration&p0=263&year=2021&month=1&day=20&hour=12&min=0&sec=0 https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/to?msg=Time%20left%20u...
booboolayla 6y ago
>Many families viewed studying in the US as a pathway to eventual residence. I thought they were coming for education? Now we're lamenting that they can't move their whole family to the US?

theseawolf 6y ago

This is a trick. 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's ruling. This is a diabolical move, arm twisting universities into opening up or else losing international students - a major sources of revenue.

contemporary343 6y ago

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.

mschuster91 6y ago
> These nitwits are cruel and incompetent. This is why I'm afraid of Pence getting President in the event Trump catches corona or has a heart attack or whatever. Or for whatever the Republicans put up after Trump. Because right now the only thing that keeps this administration from doing massive unrepairable damage is their own incompetence because Trump took a bunch of yes men as his advisors and Cabinet. A government filled by someone with the malice of the current Republicans and the competence of actual professionals? Good night democracy.

zaroth 6y ago

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. 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. 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.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
> I don’t blame ICE for not extending their exemption past the summer for online classes. 1. difficulty of returning home 2. risk of pandemic spread by returning home 3. internet connectivity issues 4. timezone issues 5. software availability issues 6. home suitability for studying 7. .... "I don't blame ICE". Destroy ICE. This is appalling. When I became a citizen 3 years ago, I told people that one motivation was that I was very very slightly afraid of Trump even though I was a white european permanent resident of 28 years. It's only taken 3 years to get to where I'd say "not imminently but genuinely afraid" for that sort of immigration status.
- zaroth 6y ago
  The schools really should have thought through of all this before canceling classes on all their students who depend so much on attending them. There’s no excuse for outright canceling classes. Classes can absolutely be held safely, if these universities simply chose to invest in the training, procedures, and equipment necessary to do so. Instead they chose to bank their tuition payments and setup a Zoom call. This is not a new policy, student visas have never allowed for online classes, and the universities certainly knew this. I think the blame pretty clearly lies with schools who decided to close up shop.

christiansakai 6y ago

the clown single handedly destroyed this country

nine_zeros 6y ago

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. It'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?

Fauntleroy 6y ago
My partner has been struggling with the US immigration system her entire stay here. With this administration things have gone even further downhill. They're violently, cruelly dedicated to the idea of shutting down immigration and dying a slow intellectual death.
Simulacra 6y ago
International students should simply avoid America all together. There are too many risks, consequences, and pitfalls to make it worth wild.
- 0xFFC 6y ago
  Sadly I made that decision few years ago and I regret it. I came into Canada, and from what I see, industry and research is not even close to USA.
  - nine_zeros 6y ago
    > Sadly I made that decision few years ago and I regret it. I came into Canada, and from what I see, industry and research is not even close to USA. All the research and industry in the US is shattered. Even if it isn't, the administration is making sure it won't be accessible to you. Don't have a view a America with rose tinted eyes. The America of the past is gone, all vanished in the last 4 years.

whoisjuan 6y ago

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

airstrike 6y ago
At Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, currently ranked the third best business school in the country, 32% of students are international. https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/programs/full-time-mba/student-culture/class-profile.aspx https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/programs/full-time-mba/...
hawngyeedun 6y ago
I don't see anything to be gained from this call other than solidifying the current administration political stance. Unless I'm missing something, this seems to be an incredibly destructive decision creates little to no benefits to the American society... For instance, that "6% of all students" alone contributes a great deal to the US economy: > According to the Commerce Department, international students contributed $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506072-ice-tells-students-on-visas-they-must-leave-us-if-schools-go-online https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/506072-ice-tells...

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago

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

dzdt 6y ago

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.

smnrchrds 6y ago

> 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 ... 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. 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 temporary exemption from military service for the purpose of education 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. 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.

foolfoolz 6y ago
the u. s. is not the only country in the world
- aaomidi 6y ago
  Do you understand the amount of money spent to be able to immigrate to a country? Or to be able to pick a country to do your studies in? It literally sucks life savings of families.
aaomidi 6y ago
I feel so bad for my Iranian brothers and sisters :(. The IRR keeps losing more and more value, which means if they were getting help from home it keeps getting more and more expensive to be able to afford to live here. And then on top of that they have to worry about piece of shits running this country that give no regard to their lives.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
Campuses and dormitories are closed though. Where are these people supposed to live?
- mrlala 6y ago
  They invented these things called apartments, they are pretty cool.
  - VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
    Do you think the average college town has enough apartments to house the 40,000+ students displaced by the closing of the university domitories?
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  If they really did have nowhere to live, and no funds, they would take the option to leave themselves. This policy takes away an option at least some of them would otherwise have. I'm very left-wing, but I think that anyone (left or rigth) on the libertarian section of the political compass should oppose a move like this kind of government policy.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    Of course libertarians are for open borders.
CerealFounder 6y ago
Its worse, its bad business.

purple_ferret 6y ago

>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. 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. This may keep the vast majority of international students out of the US.

pdabbadabba 6y ago
> schools that are allowing everyone on campus will have a majority of their classes online That would make it not a "school[] operating under normal in-person classes" but rather a "school[] adopting a hybrid model." No?
esalman 6y ago
A vast majority of international students already admitted into the fall semester are already looking for alternatives because 1) coronavirus situation in the US and 2) US embassies being shut down in many affected countries.

ilyaeck 6y ago

#abolish_ice

calvinbhai 6y ago

My hunch: 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.

eiji 6y ago

I doubt this decision is coming from the WH. It's a very simple calculation made by an agency with different priorities from what might be represented here in this forum. 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'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? Of course it'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't even want schools open in the fall, but somehow an influx of half a million students is something nobody should be concerned about? 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't allow students from all over the world to return just to sit in front of a computer. 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.

aaomidi 6y ago
> 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. Seems like someone didn't read the OP.
- eiji 6y ago
  I read that. And again, this is a policy. You are not thinking this through, in my opinion. Think about this in a way an accountable official would think. Most universities don't know what they will do yet in the fall. If you make an exemption for people who are currently already in the country, what would that solve? It would artificially pick those students over those who happened to travel home for the summer. You can't do that. That would probably make such a rule unlawful. So you have to craft such a "heavy handed" rule in such a way that it doesn't have loop holes that can be exploited. Don't think lawyers didn't review this exemption for weeks. And my earlier points still stand. I'm not trying to convince people that this rule is all that good. But understand where it comes from, and don't think it's all because of a particular administration. There is certainly logic to this rule. You may not agree with it, but I might not agree with closed schools either.

tmsh 6y ago

It's likely continued xenophobia from (the one non-family senior advisor to Trump): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_advisor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Miller_(political_advi...

IvyMike 6y ago

If I were a school I'd be finding as many possible loopholes as possible. One minute a semester in-person instruction per course, for starters.

njovin 6y ago
*with the instructor being remote :) I’m completely in favor of this guerilla approach to fighting stupid knee jerk policy changes.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

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't.

Simulacra 6y ago
As Speaker Pelosi said: Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.