US Expels Foreign Students Following The Policy Of Multiple Colleges To Permanently Study Online

Harvard University Environment (Source: Commons Wikimedia)

JAKARTA - International students studying in the United States (US) are threatened with having to leave the country. If not, deportation option will be exercised. This situation is triggered by the policy of enforcing online classes permanently.

Presented by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the online class permanent policy has been adopted by many universities in the US. CNN reported on Thursday, July 9 that this move could affect thousands of foreign students studying at universities or participating in training programs, as well as non-academic or vocational studies.

Universities are starting to make the decision to switch to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At Harvard, for example, all learning instructions are sent online. For international students, it opens the gate for them to leave the US.

Brad Farnsworth, Vice President of the American Council on Education, called the announcement a surprise to many. He also said he saw the announcement as part of a pattern of major government movements that were not quite right.

"It makes me think there will be some anxiety that international students face. And for those who are still thinking about where to study in the fall, I think this can encourage them to study at universities in other countries," he said.

Asian student

More than half of international students in the US come from Asia. During the 2018-2019 academic period, 370 thousand students came from China, 202 thousand from India, and 52 thousand from South Korea. An international student, Tianyu Fang said he was worried about the problem.

In two months, 19 year old Tianyu Fang will start his first semester at Stanford University, California. Now, this Chinese citizen is unsure if he will succeed.

Now, Fang is considering whether he wants to pay around 60 thousand US dollars per year for distance learning from China. If so, he or she will not have the interactions and conversations with friends that were usually part of the college experience.

Another problem is that it may be more difficult for some students to return home. Theresa Cardinal Brown, Director of Immigration and Cross-Border Policy at the Center for Bipartisan Policy said some students may not be able to return home at all due to home country policies that close borders.

"The bigger problem is some of these countries have travel restrictions and they can't go home. So what are they doing? It's a puzzle for many students," Brown said.

India, the second largest source of international students in the US, has closed borders to commercial flights despite still running repatriation flights. Maitri Parsana, who has just completed her third year of Biological Science at the University of Buffalo in New York State, doesn't know how she will return to India if she is forced to leave the US.

The university said it would offer a hybrid class. However, Parsana still doesn't know whether the specific class will be online or in person. In addition, Parsana explained that there were no flights to India. However, Parsana hopes the Indian government can arrange flights to enable Indian students to return home.

"I was really scared. I really didn't know what to do. I was already stressed about my studies and now I have to face one more pressure," he said, adding that the US seemed to be more focused on international students than on real problems like COVID-19.

"We just feel like we were kicked out of this country for no reason."

ICE recommends that students currently enrolled at universities in the US consider other steps, such as moving to universities using the face-to-face learning model. There is an exception for universities that use a hybrid model, namely a mix of online and face-to-face classes.

However, finding a university that offers face-to-face teaching and learning may be difficult to come by amid persistent concerns about the transmission of COVID-19. Several universities announced plans to re-open live classes but shorten the number of semesters, but suddenly canceled it.