US epidemic failure victimizes intl students
▶ Forcing colleges to reopen creates false sense of ‘back to normal’: analyst
The US government announced another “stupid policy,” as what analysts said and students as well as universities complained about, that if foreign students only have online courses in the 2020 fall semester, they must leave the US or take alternative steps to maintain their nonimmigrant status.
The move has received heavy criticism in and out of the US, and if the new policy is enforced, roughly 370,000 Chinese students, the largest source of foreign students in the US, will become the biggest group to pay the price of the US failure in handling the pandemic.
Other countries that will be heavily affected include India, which had 202,000 students studying in the US in the 2018-19 academic year, followed by South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
Chinese analysts said that the move will further weaken the competitiveness and attractiveness of the US among Chinese, and the impractical policy that tries to circumvent its poor coronavirus response can only cause more trouble.
“Nonimmigrant students within the US are not permitted to take a full course of study through online classes,” US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced.
Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times that “this is another nonsensical policy by the Trump administration.”
The new policy showed that the US is adding pressure on the universities across the country to reopen, Lü said, but the measure goes against the principle and common sense for epidemic prevention by encouraging face-to-face classes rather than online courses.
By forcing universities and schools to reopen, the Trump administration could create a false sense of “back to normal” and show the voters that the government is successful in handling the pandemic, even as the epidemic situation worsens, Lü said.
Harvard University President Larry Bacow said the policy is “a blunt, onesize-fits-all approach to a complex problem,” NPR reported.
Chen Xi, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, believes that the regulation won’t be implemented, as the regulation is a big blow to international students and for educational institutions in the US.
“It will result in a significant reduction in the competitiveness of the US higher education industry and damage its international image,” he said.
Lü said “the policy is totally impractical, and will cause more chaotic situations and trouble. The administration is making foreign students and scholars the new victims of their failure to handle the pandemic.”