On July 6, U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) stunned international students with an order that threatened deportation if their college or university remained online for the fall 2020 semester.
“Education makes the world a better place,” he said. “Shutting the gates to our country is not a good policy to have.”
Resistance to the policy was swift. Two days later, Harvard and MIT filed a joint lawsuit calling the reversal of a March exemption to online class limits “arbitrary and capricious.” Around sixty institutions filed amicus briefs in support of the lawsuit.
On July 14, in a surprise courtroom twist, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, withdrew its latest directive and reinstated the exemptions.
The reversal leaves many asking why the change was ever made in the first place.
It was likely part of President Trump’s push to force schools to reopen despite the growing spread of COVID-19. It may have also been simply another xenophobic policy supported by the Trump Administration.
Or perhaps our mercurial leader was just trying to gaslight higher education and international students. As noted in the lawsuit, “the effect—and perhaps even the goal—is to create as much chaos for universities and international students as possible.”
No doubt, if that was the aim, they succeeded.
Prior to the decision’s withdrawal, Ron Cushing, director of International Student Services at the University of Cincinnati, noted that 3,500 students on campus would be impacted by the ICE decision if upheld.
When I spoke with him before the administration’s reversal, Cushing was holding out hope that a federal judge would either block or overturn the ICE directive. The university was looking at issuing new I-20 forms for every SEVP [Student and Exchange Visitor Program] student on campus, a task he described as “onerous, burdensome, and unnecessary.”
“Education makes the world a better place,” he said. “Shutting the gates to our country is not a good policy to have.”
“Students are the backbone of research at major universities, and when we enact overly punitive practices, we risk hindering research in every area,” Cushing said.
It wouldn’t have been a good fiscal decision either. According to the Institute of International Education, SEVP added $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018.
“By stopping international students, this hurts the economy and also the revenue of the college,” said Jill Nussel, the International Student Coordinator/Designated School Official for Alderson Broaddus University in Philippi, West Virginia.
Beyond the financial benefit, Nussel highlighted how international students add to the fabric of the campus community, impact classroom interactions, and strengthen the larger community through practical learning opportunities.
Cushing added that two-thirds of all University of Cincinnati’s international students are engaged in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. The impact of their classroom research and job training—especially during a pandemic—is global in its reach.
“Students are the backbone of research at major universities, and when we enact overly punitive practices, we risk hindering research in every area,” Cushing said.
The ICE directive stated that foreign students must transfer to institutions with face-to-face learning or risk deportation—not an easy task with mere weeks before the start of the fall semester. It also proposed students return to their home countries and continue their studies online. The lawsuit called these options “impossible, impracticable, prohibitively expensive, and/or dangerous.”
International and non-international students alike expressed outrage at the proposed change.
Kamilah Valentín Díaz, an incoming sophomore studying political science at Purdue University, is one of those students.
Valentín Díaz, who is from Puerto Rico, is the social media and outreach chair for the Purdue Immigrant Allies (PIA), a student-led organization that she said strives to “amplify the voices of international students.”
Before the administration’s reversal, PIA partnered with the Muslim Student Association to create an online petition urging Purdue University to create a one-credit option online for international students “as a countermeasure to the cruel and unjust policies,” and as “the least [Purdue] can do to ensure that our international family and friends have a convenient way to avoid deportation and continue their studies without significant hardship.”
Purdue was among the institutions that filed amicus briefs. According to the Fall 2019 International Students and Scholars Enrollment and Statistical Report, Purdue is host to 9,085 international students from 134 countries. This ranks them fourth nationally for public academic institutions and second in the Big Ten. International students account for 20 percent of the school’s total enrollment.
Now, after the Department of Homeland Security’s reversal, international students can exhale— Briefly.
But questions still remain as to how this will affect incoming F-1 visa students for fall 2020 if institutions switch to online formats.
“This is definitely a big win, and we’re happy to see ICE rescind such ridiculous and stressful guidelines,” the PIA Board said in a statement.
“However, this is not the only matter we want rescinded,” the board continued. “The dignity and safety of immigrants has been threatened for decades in a variety of ways, and so we will continue to work, educate, and advocate on behalf of our immigrant communities.”
The statement continued: “We just hope that people will bring the same energy and commitment and apply it to fighting for undocumented immigrants, for refugees and asylum seekers, for people in the midst of applying for protections or citizenship, and immigrant citizens.”