28% drop in student visas to Indians in US

WASHINGTON: There was a massive decline of 28% in the number of student visas issued by the US to Indian students in 2017, according to new state department data.

The total number of F-1 student visas issued by the US fell by 17% from 417,728 in 2016 to 393,573. Indians accounted for the largest drop— from 65,257 in 2016 to 47,302 in 2017. The number of Chinese students fell by 24%, which was because of a 2014 visa policy change specific to the country. Without China, the overall number fell by 13%.

China and India are the top two countries of origin for foreign students, followed by South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the new state department data on Monday, attributed the overall fall to stricter admissibility rules mandated by the Trump administration, which required consular officials to ensure students planned to return home after finishing their studies.

The WSJ report said the changes were reflected in the Foreign Affairs Manual, which is an official guide for consular officials. A state department spokeswoman said the guidelines were changed as part of a review of the rules mandated by an executive order signed by Trump in 2017.

“The president’s mandate requires us to rigorously enforce all existing grounds of inadmissibility and to ensure subsequent compliance with related laws after admission,” she said.

A response from the state department to a request from Hindustan Times was awaited.

Earlier reports and surveys of US universities noted a significant drop in admission applications. However, it could not be confirmed whether the number of visas issued declined because of fewer applications.

The decline in the number of foreign students had started before Trump took office — it came down from 644,233 in 2015 to 471,728 in 2016. The trend has been ascribed to high tuition costs and the state of the job market in the US. DHAKA: A Bangladeshi court granted bail on Monday to former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who was jailed last month for five years for graft, raising a chance her party might take part in a December general election.

Zia is a two-term prime minister whose bitter rivalry with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has defined Bangladeshi politics for years. Their feud hangs over the run-up to a December election with Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) vowing to boycott the polls in a protest against what it has said was Zia’s unfair jailing on trumped up charges.

“The high court granted her bail for four months,” Moudud Ahmed, a lawyer in the case and also a senior leader of Zia’s party, told reporters after the court ruling. The decision to release Zia on bail could open the door to her party’s participation in the general election, party secretarygeneral Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told Reuters.

“We can not say just now. Let our chief come out and then we will sit with her and we’ll discuss it,” Alamgir said. “We are always in favour of elections, but there must be a congenial atmosphere.”

It was not immediately clear when Zia would be released from detention. Alamgir said an election without Zia would be “meaningless”. He also said that unless the judgement against her was overturned, she would not be able to contest the election even if she got bail.

Under Bangladesh electoral rules, anyone jailed for more than two years cannot contest an election for five years.