US to roll back student visas of international students who have online classes

The United States announced that it will be cancelling the student visas of foreign students whose classes have been moved online. “Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement. It added that students who are non-immigrants ‘must depart’ if their classes have been moved online or switch to a different school to avoid deportation.

The rules apply to F-1 visas (students who pursue academic coursework) and M-1 visas (students who pursue vocational coursework).

Notably, most American Universities are yet to announce the pattern of coursework for the upcoming term. Although universities like Harvard have announced full-time classes online, other universities are looking at a blend of online and offline modules.

This has been faced with opposition from various fronts, as students and parents alike have voiced that this will add on to the looming uncertainty that the pandemic has been posing.

There were more than one million international students in the United States for the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE). The largest number of international students came from China, followed by India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Canada. The Donald Trump government has made a bunch of changes to the US immigration system, in the pretext of creating jobs for locals post the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in the barring of swaths of immigrants from coming to the country.