The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
College leaders slam ICE order to remain open
Higher education institutions will need to keep their doors open or lose their international students under new guidelines issued by federal immigration authorities that have several Connecticut university leaders crying foul and exploring their legal options.
“This is yet another harmful action from a federal administration hellbent on attacking immigrants, people of color, LGBTQ communities and anyone they can define as the ‘other,’ ” Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut
State College and University system, said in a message that went out Tuesday to the system’s 17 colleges and universities. The guidelines, issued this week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reiterate rules already in effect that say that international students must take at least some of their classes in person.
The directive said new
visas will not be issued to students at schools or programs that are entirely online. Even at colleges offering a mix of in-person and online courses this fall, international students will be barred from taking all their classes online.
Deb Noack, a spokeswoman at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said the institution is deeply concerned about the ICE guidance.
Even with plans to offer an in-person component to every program, Noack said, the directive implies that if the campus is forced to go mid-semester to online, international students will have to leave or transfer.
“Given a worldwide pandemic where everyone is looking for safe workarounds, we find it difficult to understand the reason or rationale for this directive,” Noack said.
President Donald Trump has insisted that both schools and colleges return to in-person instruction as soon as possible. As soon as ICE issued its directive, Trump repeated on Twitter that schools must reopen this fall.
The new directive is seen by many educators as a way to force universities that may have been hedging their bets to reopen in the fall even as COVID-19 cases continue to increase in most parts of the country.
The American Council on Education, which represents some 1,700 college and university presidents, called the guidelines “horrifying.”
“It’s going to cause enormous confusion and uncertainty,” said Terry Hartle, the council’s senior vice president. “ICE is clearly creating an incentive for institutions to reopen, regardless of whether or not the circumstances of the pandemic warrant it.”
NAFSA, an international education group, also blasted the directive as “harmful to international students,” putting the health and well-being of the entire higher education community at risk.
Last year, universities in the U.S. attracted nearly 1.1 million students from abroad. Losing international students could be disastrous for colleges that depend on higher tuition rates that international students usually pay.
Some Connecticut higher education institutions, vowing to open for in-class learning in some capacity in the fall, say the directive shouldn’t have an impact.
“We are using parallel delivery of both in-classroom and online classes,” said John Morgan, a spokesman for Quinnipiac University in Hamden.
Same for Fairfield University and the University of New Haven.
Greg Eichorn, vice president of enrollment and student success at UNH, said the plan is to offer on-site classes in the fall, with some classes in a hybrid format, meaning some in-person, some online.
“However, we are concerned that many of our students do not fully understand the regulations.” Eichnorn said.
UNH is reaching out to all of its international students to explain the guidelines. Last year, UNH had 739 international students, most of them studying on the graduate level.
At the University of Connecticut, spokeswoman Stephanie Reitz said the university is working to ensure that coursework includes enough in-person offerings to prevent any of its more than 4,300 international students from being affected by the directive.
“We’re already seeing some faculty members coming forward to offer more in-person opportunities for affected students,” Reitz said. “Our primary concern ... centers on how this directive will impact these students. They’re a valued part of the UConn family, and we’re deeply concerned about the effect this may have on their well-being. Many are already facing incredible stress and anxiety in light of both the pandemic along with amplified and targeted racism that many are facing in society today.”
Then there are the Ivies. Yale University announced last week plans to teach most classes remotely in the fall, while welcoming freshmen, juniors and seniors to on-campus housing.
By keeping sophomores home in the fall, Yale can keep its oncampus population to about 60 percent. Yale will allow sophomores back in the spring semester. The only in-person courses will be studio and lab-based classes.
As of 2019, Yale had more than 2,800 students from outside the United States, and nearly 2,700 international scholars who conduct research and teach.
On Tuesday, Yale officials said they were preparing a response to the new ICE directive.
Ojakian, called the latest ICE regulation pointless and harmful.
His system of four universities, 12 community colleges and an online degree program has at least 68 international students at universities and 190 at community colleges.
“If an institution moves to online-only education but chooses to leave residence halls open, international students would be evicted from student housing, taken away from their fellow students and forced to finish the semester from their home country, where they may or may not have the infrastructure and resources to complete their coursework,” Ojakian said.
Ojakian said international students make universities stronger. Many go on to live, work and raise a family in Connecticut.
“We will evaluate our legal options and take whatever steps possible to defend our international students,” Ojakian said.
There are seven students at Western Connecticut State University on F-1 visas who could be affected by the latest ruling, spokesman Paul Steinmetz said.
As long as Western continues to offer both in-person and online courses, university officials say, they think the students will be permitted to stay. They are uncertain about the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas when the end of the semester is to be totally online.
“We also suspect the guidelines may be subject to change as things evolve, as was the case in the spring semester,” Steinmetz said.