Illinois universities join fight against new student visa rule
“ICE’s arbitrary new rule harms both international students and the institutions where these students contribute to creating a diverse and culturally-vibrant academic environment.”
A DePaul University student who arrived from South Korea was denied entry into the country last week because he could not show that he was in compliance with a controversial visa rule for international students, a consortium of universities say in a new court filing.
The rule, announced July 6 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, requires international students to take some level of in-person classes in order to enter or remain in the country — even though many colleges are moving the bulk of courses online this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the beginning of the outbreak, ICE temporarily lifted this requirement for international students.
The DePaul anecdote emerged in federal court documents filed Sunday as part of a lawsuit against ICE and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In a separate legal challenge, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced Monday that he joined 17 other states seeking an injunction to block the rule revision from taking effect.
“ICE’s arbitrary new rule harms both international students and the institutions where these students contribute to creating a diverse and culturally-vibrant academic environment,” Raoul said in a statement. “Announcing this rule in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has created additional confusion and upheaval for students and universities already facing uncertainty caused by the pandemic.”
About 40,000 international students travel to Illinois to take classes and live on college campuses every year, Raoul’s office said. Many have remained in the country because of difficulty flying home after classes abruptly shifted online this spring. But for newly admitted students and those trying to return from their home countries, the ICE directive poses a major hurdle.
A spokeswoman for DePaul said she had “no other public information to provide” about the student who, according to the court filing, was denied entry after arriving on July 8. The student, the filing said, “was prevented from entering the country at the San Francisco airport on the ground that he had not yet registered for classes — and thus could not establish that at least some of his coursework would be inperson.”
The filing, an amicus brief on behalf of 59 universities, included support from Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois. The lawsuit was initially brought by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on July 8.
Changes to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program announced last week caught universities and international students off-guard, inducing a wave of panic among schools that were finalizing their offerings for the fall. The new rules say international students taking exclusively online classes will have to leave the U.S., won’t be issued new visas and will be denied entry. Students can remain in the country if they transfer to a school and take classes that involve in-person learning.
Additionally, should schools need to revert to online teaching because of increased infections, international students would lose their visas and have to return home, the rules say.
“Nonimmigrant students within the United States are not permitted to take a full course of study through online classes,” the ICE website says. “If students find themselves in this situation, they must leave the country or take alternative steps to maintain their nonimmigrant status such as a reduced course load or appropriate medical leave.”
Universities are supposed to inform the federal government by Wednesday if they will offer only online courses this fall, according to Raoul. By Aug. 4, schools are also required to certify whether each international student enrolled at their institution will have a course load that is inperson or a blend of online learning.
In a court filing, Northwestern’s associate provost for global affairs said many international students are feeling anxious about the upcoming term as they weigh their options. NU enrolled nearly 4,000 international students from 122 countries last school year, and the vast majority of NU’s 1,108 newly admitted international students are outside the U.S. and will need a visa to enter the country this fall.
“Many of these students face difficult or dangerous situations in their home countries, and many have built their lives and families in the United States,” professor Annelise Riles said in the filing.
At U. of C., Provost Ka Yee C. Lee wrote in a filing that 4,042 international students are enrolled as incoming and returning students this fall. The new ICE rules disrupt U. of C.’s careful planning to reopen campus and it could take “hundreds of hours to provide the required certification” for international students, Lee wrote.
“The July 6 Directive does not provide specificity with regard to how much coursework must be taken in person, which has resulted in deep uncertainty and concern about whether students’ specific course selections will be sufficient to allow them to maintain their visa statuses,” she wrote.