New Ice rules will force schools to either reopen, risking Covid-19 exposure, or effectively kick out foreign students
If you are an international student planning to study in the United States this fall and your classes are online, you might want to prepare yourself. Unlike students who are American citizens, you won’t get to resume your classes. You are looking at losing your legal status in the US. You are looking at getting deported.
On Monday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) issued new rules to all educational institutions in the country. The new rules mandate that international students on F-1 and M-1 visas who are currently in their home countries will be denied entry into the US if their universities go online in the fall semester – as Harvard University, for instance, plans to do. Students who are already inside the US whose universities go online will also lose their immigration status unless they can immediately secure admission at another program with in-person instruction. If they can’t, they will be deported.
The rule change appears to serve two of Trump’s political objectives, both paranoid talking points for his base
Related: ‘A matter of life and death’: a top immigrant advocate on the US election
Gayatri Devi is associate professor of English at Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania
