International students relieved, but cautious, over rescinded rule
Following outcries from students and push-back from colleges around the country, ICE’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program announced Tuesday that it would rescind a rule that would force international students to go home if fall courses were held online.
Local students said they were relieved.
It was a “breath of fresh air” and has likely saved him a lot of hassle and money, said Cameron
Flowers, a graduate student at Texas Southern University in Houston. Last week’s announcement, however, felt like “a slap in the face” to so many international students, he said.
Flowers, originally from Nassau
in the Bahamas, was weighing his options when the July 6 announcement came from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I was going to take a class that wasn’t going to contribute anything to my degree,” Flowers said.
He was also assessing what being sent home in the middle of the pandemic would mean — a costly process of quitting his job as a graduate assistant at TSU, paying money to break his lease at his apartment, moving all of his belongings and returning to the Bahamas where he hoped to find a job that would support him while taking online courses.
Pablo Martinez, 29, a pianist from Spain pursuing a doctorate in musical arts at University of
“I’m still keeping my enrollment in face-to-face classes, not only because I think it’s good for my progress as a student, but in the back of my head, I’m still worried about some sort of retaliation (against international students) later.”
Pablo Martinez, 29, a pianist from Spain pursuing a doctorate in musical arts at the University of Houston
Houston, said he originally felt blindsided by the original ruling and fearful of how it would affect his academic research.
Leaving your country to study, work and improve your live, “it’s not an easy thing to do. If you do it, it’s because you’re really committed to what you want to do,” Martinez said.
This week, after the rule was thrown out, Martinez said he feels calmer, but remains cautious.
“I’m still keeping my enrollment in face-to-face classes, not only because I think it’s good for my progress as a student, but in the back of my head, I’m still worried about some sort of retaliation (against international students) later,” Martinez said. “I need to play it safe. In the same way that this announcement was so unexpected, there might be something else coming for us.”
Sally Connolly, an associate professor of Contemporary Poetry at University of Houston, was outraged.
“I’m glad it was rescinded, but it should have never been ... in the first place,” said Connolly, who is originally from the United Kingdom and attended Harvard University in 2004 on a student visa.
Connolly, who contacted officials and representatives, urging them to fight against the ruling, called ICE’s initial rule a “very ill thought-through policy,” which showed “causal disregard for the well being, welfare and the future” of students.
“These students are coming to us to get an unparalleled education. The reason they’re coming here is a desire for improvement and betterment,” she said.
Contributions not considered
The ruling also didn’t take into consideration travel conditions or students’ home conditions amid the pandemic, students’ access to internet in their home country, or the difficulties of transferring to another institution, especially mid-semester, Connolly said.
She added that it also disregarded the long and arduous process international students go through to study in the United States, and
the contributions they make to the country intellectually, culturally and financially, she said.
International students contributed $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The Trump administration and ICE faced lawsuits from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University with more than 200 additional universities backing them. The colleges argued that the policy jeopardized students’ safety and would force schools to reconsider fall plans they have spent months preparing.
Nearly 60 universities also signed a brief stating the rule would send their plans into disarray with less than a month before some schools start the fall term and would require colleges to “choose between opening their campuses regardless of the public health risks, or forcing their international students to leave the country.”
In Texas, more than 63,000 international students enrolled in colleges across the state in fall 2019. Texas A&M University had
5,130 international students; University of Texas at Austin, 4,120; and the University of Houston System, 4,454, with a majority of them (3,464) enrolled at UH’s flagship campus.
Texas A&M President Michael K. Young said ICE’s policy could have had a devastating impact on international students and Texas A&M’s campuses and communities, but likely would not apply to the campus since half of its classes are slated to be in-person this fall.
University of Houston President Renu Khator said on Twitter that the college would work to support students’ education.
“Having been an international student myself, I understand your concerns and anxiety. Our international office will reach out to you and work with you,” Khator tweeted.
Expect to fully comply
University of Texas System Chancellor James B. Milliken said officials were awaiting the Department of Homeland Security’s finalized temporary rule on the restrictions for online learning, but were assisting international students with their course schedules and degree planning.
“We expect to be able to fully comply with new regulations and to have a full complement of international students studying across the UT System,” he wrote.
Despite the outpouring of support, Connolly and Martinez predict that the reversed ruling will leave many international students with a negative view of how they are perceived or accepted in the United States.
It gives the impression that “there’s no guarantee that once you’re here in a program of study that you’re going to complete it,” Connolly said.
Martinez said many of his friends in Europe believed he was getting deported for no reason.
“I don’t think that looks good for the United States as a country that is multicultural. It makes the (administration) look as if they are trying to pursue another agenda that is going to limit options for international people to come here.”