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US visas rule could send foreign students home

International students taking online classes have been asked to transfer to schools with in-person classes or leave the United States

Thousands of international students in the United States could be sent home following a new visa rule announced by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The announcement this week follows a directive requesting international students taking classes fully online to transfer to schools with in-person classes or leave the country.

International students on F-1 and M-1 visas could be forced to leave the US mid-pandemic if their schools go fully online.

Some students have also lamented the challenges of remote learning, which include night classes, slow or no internet and even missing out on research participation.

Reuters reports that some of the foreign students are already considering taking time off or leaving their courses altogether.

Unequal playing field

Raul Romero, a Venezuelan on a scholarship at Kenyon College in Ohio, said returning to his country to continue his studies would take him two steps back.

Venezuela is currently weathering an economic crisis and does not even guarantee stable internet, which would make learning very difficult. Should he be sent home, the 21-year-old said, his classmates would have the advantage over him of better learning conditions.

“To think about myself going back to that conflict, while continuing my classes in a completely unequal playing field with my classmates, I don’t think it’s possible,” Romero told Reuters.

Meanwhile, with all flights cancelled between Venezuela and the US, how even to return home presents another conundrum for the student.

Few options

With schools moving to conduct classes fully online, international students are fretting over the development.

Larry Bacow, president of Harvard, said the university is “deeply concerned” about foreign students, who have been left with very few options.

Even before the ICE’s announcement, Harvard had said on Monday that it plans to hold courses online next year.

Lewis Picard, an Australian second-year doctoral student in experimental physics at Harvard, said he would struggle to get on with his research work if he is obliged to study remote.

“There’s essentially no way that the work I am doing can be done remotely. We’ve already had this big pause on it with the pandemic, and we’ve just been able to start going back to lab,” the 24-year-old said.

Meanwhile, students cannot take transfers, as classes are scheduled to commence in a few weeks.

E A Alanore

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Source
Reuters
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