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WASHINGTON: Scores of US lawmakers, academics, and students are pressing the Trump administration to reverse what is widely seen as a cruel and mean-spirited order that bars foreign students from staying in the country if they do not attend in-person classes. The plea comes amid panic in the international student community about their future even as universities are mounting legal challenges to the new rules and teachers are working out ways to get around it.
In separate letters to the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a group of 136 US Democratic congressmen and 30 senators, including California’s Kamala Harris, said the latest guidance appeared motivated by “animus towards non-citizens and immigrants” and is a flagrant attempt to hold international students hostage in order to force schools to reopen even as Covid-19 cases are rising.
“The ICE’s announcement of their plans to force out or deport international students who remain at US colleges and universities and who are taking a full online course load is cruel and unconscionable. These students are already in the United States,