This archive report was first published on 9 July 2020.
More than a million foreign students in the US are facing deportation due to the Trump administration's visa policy, which has sparked widespread concerns among students and universities.
According to the Institute of International Education (IEE), the number of foreign students in the US has doubled in 20 years, reaching over one million in 2019.
However, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced this week that foreign students whose entire courses have moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic must return to their home country.
"I'm kind of scared actually," said an Indian graduate student at a major Texas university, who asked not to be named. "I'm talking to a lot of people that are really scared, (they are) alone in a different country. I don't have anyone to take care of me if I get ill. The cost of the medical treatment in the US is far, far more than the country which I come from," he added.
Harvard and MIT launched a lawsuit Wednesday, asking the court to revoke the order that Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said had thrown higher education in the US "into chaos." But the action has done little to alleviate the worries of foreign students.
"The rule is really, really cruel," said an Indian graduate studying electrical engineering at one of the top universities in Arizona, where the virus is also surging. "I think it's really hard to control the spread of the virus in such a densely populated campus. It just seems really unfair to me that the virus getting bad would be something that international students, who didn't necessarily have any part to play in spreading the virus, would have to suffer from," she added.
Some 84 percent of universities are planning to offer a hybrid system of in-person and online classes, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education website, which would save students from deportation. However, many students fear a resurgence of the pandemic later this year, which could see all classes moved online, forcing them to leave the country.
"These decisions risk damaging one of the United States' strongest assets, which is our top-rate, best-in-the-world international education system," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council.
