Call to Action to Help International Students
UPDATE: The federal government has rescinded the July 6th guidance that started all of this. However, we continue to be vigilant, as they may try and issue a modified rule.
International students in the United States are those on any one of three student visas - F-1, M-1, and J-1. Being in lawful immigration status as an international student in the US on an F-1 visa requires that you comply with a few regulations, which are:
Falling out of status can have serious consequences. It leaves international students open to deportation, and can create a situation whereby the student could never regain entry to the United States. These regulations have been in effect for almost two decades now under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, current times are NOT a normal circumstance.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulates the F-1 and M-1 student programs through SEVP, which is the Student Exchange and Visitor Program. The J-1 program is administered by the Department of State.
Through the Spring and Summer semesters, SEVP allowed international students to temporarily take a full load of online courses. This meant that when universities abruptly transitioned to distance learning due to the COVID-19 emergency, their immigration status wasn’t affected.
On July 6th, 2020, SEVP issued guidance for the fall semester. In their guidance, they have stated that international students attending online-only programs must leave the United States. Furthermore, for schools operating in a hybrid mode, international students must not take a fully online course load, and if they are, they must leave the United States.
SEVP also stated in their guidance that if for some reason schools transition to an online-only course mode for the fall mid-semester, international students will be forced to leave the US.
Many schools are operating in online-only mode this fall. Their students have had no say in this decision, which has been made for a public health reason. These students would be forced to leave the country and return home, and they have no idea when they will be allowed to return to the US, or if they will be allowed to return to the US. Many countries have travel bans in effect, and some countries have no incoming or outgoing flights. International students from certain countries cannot access resources required for them to participate in online courses. Some international students also have expiring visas[1], and with no way of knowing when embassies will reopen, this could make it extremely problematic for them to reenter the country when normal in-person classes resume, as they would have to reapply or renew their visa to re-enter. The policy also heavily affects “dependent age-outs” - children of parents who were here on temporary visas and have lost the ability to apply for a green card because they turned 21.
Requiring international students to take some in-person courses not only puts them at risk for COVID-19, but also puts the faculty required to teach those courses at risk. It also creates a situation where universities feel pressured to offer an in-person offering to international students. There is no guarantee there will be available seats in those courses. Graduate students and TAs are an important part of the teaching experience for many courses at universities, and this policy means there will be losses to the manpower required to teach.
Because forcing them to leave will disrupt the primary purpose of their objective in the United States: their education. Under normal circumstances international students always attend in-person classes. They are acutely aware of the restrictions of their immigration status. They are allowed to stay in the country for the duration of their course of study (see here). These are non-immigrants that entered the country on visas, and are in the country because they are in a certified educational program.
These regulations are acceptable for normal circumstances. This is not a normal circumstance. Coronavirus cases are rising rapidly throughout the US. There have been numerous reports of students on university campuses contracting the virus in the hundreds. Air travel poses a massive risk of contracting coronavirus.
New students have never been allowed to enter the US for online only programs. That will never happen. This is about continuing students that entered the country lawfully for programs that started with in-person education obtaining a temporary relief due to the circumstances of the pandemic.
ICE’s policy is harmful, regressive, and directly hurts international students in the country. They are effectively threatening to deport international students whose schools, with them having no say in it, have chosen to go online.
NB: Schools may choose to implement a “1-credit course” so that international students can stay, but ICE will likely see through this, putting the school at risk of being decertified. It also doesn’t change the fact that if the school goes online only at ANY POINT DURING THE SEMESTER, international students will have to leave.
Please contact your federal representatives. CALLING HAS THE MOST DIRECT IMPACT. IT WILL TAKE 5-10 MINUTES OF YOUR WHOLE DAY. PLEASE DO THIS.
How do I find them?
You can find your House Representative by entering your zip code here: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
You can find your Senate representative in the link here: https://www.senate.gov/senators/index.htm There are two Senators to a state. Call BOTH of them.
When you are on the phone with them, you can use the following script:
“Hi. My name is [name] and I’m calling for [lawmaker’s name]. I am a constituent of [district - replace with whatever your district is].
I’m calling on behalf of all the international students in the country impacted by the recent ICE policy issued on July 6th. ICE is threatening to remove all international students whose schools and universities have moved online only due to the coronavirus pandemic. They are forcing international students to risk their health for their immigration status by making them take classes in-person to avoid deportation.
They have also stated that if a school has to move online only for ANY reason, international students will have to leave the country. This means that if schools shut down due to virus surges, international students will have to leave.
This policy is unjust and inhumane. With embassies closed worldwide and travel bans in effect, there is no guarantee that students who are forced to leave would be able to return once they are gone. ICE should ensure that international students are safe while accessing their education. They should make a temporary exemption to their rules to allow international students to continue taking online classes. Congress must do everything in their power to pressure ICE to reverse their decision and adopt a more humane policy. Congress must also investigate why ICE chose to implement this policy at all. They are not only putting immigrants at risk, they are putting hundreds of thousands of American faculty and students at risk of catching the coronavirus.
International students should not have to choose between COVID-19 and deportation.”
You can also use this script as an email, but calling has the most direct impact. Please do! Watch Mary Kruk do it here.
DID YOU CALL YOUR REP? PLEASE CLICK HERE.
We understand that non-tenured faculty are uniquely at risk when it comes to university administration. However, we need your help. We need you to bring up international student concerns whenever you can. Please try to make your administration listen to the fact that if we are not granted accommodations, we may be deported. Raise your concerns with your school’s ISS and administration. Tell them to get in touch with the government and lobby them.
If you are an international student, contact everyone you can about your concerns with your visa status. Ask your department what in-person classes they will be having and if they can make exceptions for you. Email your ISSS and ask them to advocate on your behalf. Email the director of your undergraduate program. Email your school’s administration, even the president or chancellor of your school.
If you are an American student, you can do everything listed above, but the most important thing you can do is contact your representatives.
If you’re an international student impacted by the new regulations, Greg Siskind has created a form you can fill out if you’re interested in telling your story to the media. Go here. Reporters looking for students impacted by regulations, go to Greg Siskind’s Twitter @gsiskind.
If you’re an international student impacted by the new regulations and you live in San Fernando, Van Nuys, Pacoima, Arleta, Panorama City, or Sylmar, PLEASE contact House Rep. Tony Cardenas at 818-221-3718. Have your ZIP code handy. Tell them your situation, and they will see if there is anything they can do to help you.
A quick note on petitions: while they raise awareness, a government is not going to care about a petition started by a non-citizen (WH.gov petitions have a time period they were responded to under the Obama administration but the Trump administration has neglected active petitions there back to 2017). The most impact you can have right now is calling or emailing your elected representatives.
Harvard/MIT have filed a lawsuit asking for a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction, and injunction against the new regulations. The lawsuit may or may not be successful. WE STILL NEED YOU TO CALL REPRESENTATIVES IF YOU’RE AMERICAN. See above for information on how to!
Here is a list of higher ed institution responses, compiled by Sanfeng, following a thread by Ubadah.
To date there have been nine lawsuits filed.
Edits
Fixed some dates.
Amended some language using the words “illegal” immigrants. No human being is illegal.
For accuracy edits or any other concerns about the document please talk to me on twitter @siointerrupted or email siointerrupted - at - gmail - dot - com.
Translations can be found here courtesy of a group of wonderful people. Do you want to translate? Please get in touch with me.
[1] A non-immigrant student is admitted to the country for Duration of Status. This means they are eligible to stay as long as they need to to complete their academic program, even if their visa expires.