FOREIGN STUDENTS WEIGH STUDYING IN PERSON VS. LOSING VISAS

International students worried about a new immigration policy that could potentially cost them their visas say they feel stuck between being unnecessarily exposed during the coronavirus pandemic and being able to finish their studies in America.

Students from countries as diverse as India, China and Brazil told The Associated Press they are scrambling to devise plans after federal immigration authorities notified colleges last week that international students must leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools operate entirely online this fall.

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit last week to block the decision, and now California and Washington state are seeking injunctions against enforcing the new visa policy.

“Shame on the Trump Administration for risking not only the education opportunities for students who earned the chance to go to college, but now their health and well-being as well,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Thursday.

Some said they may return home, or move to nearby Canada.

“I’m generating research, I’m doing work in a great economy,” said Batuhan Mekiker, a PH.D. student from Turkey studying computer science at Montana State University in Bozeman. He’s in the third year of a five-year program.

“If I go to Turkey, I would not have that,“he said. “I would like to be somewhere where my talent is appreciated.”

Mathias, a Seattle-based student who spoke on condition his last name not be used for fear of losing his immigration status, said he is set to sell his car, break his lease, and get his cat Louis permission to fly back to his home in Paris in the next two weeks.

“Everyone’s very worried,” he said. “We have our whole lives here.”

Seven students from China and Germany who attend universities in California sued Friday to block enforcement, alleging potential threats to their health and “financial calamity.”

The policy “treats them as pawns for the president’s politically motivated decision,” Mark Rosenbaum of nonprofit Public Counsel, which filed the suit, said in a statement.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the policy could inflict “significant harm” on colleges, students, the business community and the economy.

“This is very dangerous and cruel,” said Jessie Peng, a Chinese graduate student in analytics at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

“We have nowhere to go,” said Peng, 27. “Either risk our lives and go to school or we risk our lives flying back to China.”

Jasdeep Mandia, a doctoral candidate from India studying economics at Arizona State University, said he has breathing problems that could worsen if he gets sick from COVID-19.

Mandia, 35, originally planned to conduct all his fall studies online. He says the Trump directive puts the shaky standing of international students on display.

“It has never been a level playing field,” he said. “But this makes it more apparent.”

At Indiana University, American scholar Dakota Murray wrote in the school newspaper about his uncertainty over how the guidance would affect him and his wife, a fellow doctoral candidate who is from South Korea.

Murray, 27, said he and his wife had discussed going to live in South Korea or maybe Canada, where she has relatives. He spoke on condition that his wife’s name not be used because she is trying to obtain a green card that will let her work and reside in the U.S. after she finishes her studies.