This archive report was first published on 11 July 2020.
On July 11, 2020, the Trump administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a directive requiring foreign students whose classes were moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic to leave the United States.
The directive, which has been challenged in court by several universities including Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has sparked widespread criticism from Kenyan students and scholars in the US.
Prof. Kefa Otiso, a Kenyan lecturer at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, termed the order as punitive, saying Kenya should send a protest note to the US government through its ambassador.
“There is no justification in suddenly disrupting the lives of Kenyans in America,” he said.
According to the Kenya Scholars and Studies Association president Jerono Rotich, there were more than 4,000 Kenyan students enrolled in US higher learning institutions in the 2019/20 academic year.
These students, along with over one million international students in the US, contributed significantly to the US economy, with figures by the Institute of International Education (IIE) showing that international students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018.
