ACE President Ted Mitchell and the
presidents of three other major higher education associations sent a letter
last week to the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the Department of State and U.S.
Customs and Border Protection at the Department Homeland Security (DHS) asking for clarification that international students can safely travel to begin
the academic term this fall.
The presidents urged the
agencies to work together to safeguard the ability of new international
students enrolled in hybrid academic programs at U.S. institutions to have
their visas processed and enter the country, as outlined in a recent FAQ
document from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Along with
Mitchell, the letter was signed by Matt Owens, interim president of the
Association of American Universities; Peter McPherson, president of the
Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; and Esther D. Brimmer,
executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International
Educators.
“Given the great uncertainty
facing our international students and our institutions this fall, it is
important to make sure that existing and initial students can safely travel
with certainty to begin the academic term,” they wrote.
ICE announced late last month that
new international students who plan to enroll at a college or university that
has adopted an all-online instruction plan for the fall will be barred from
entering the country. Although the agency carved out an exception for students
in hybrid programs—those that have both an online and in-person component—there
have been reports of students being denied entry to the United States while
traveling on valid visas for a hybrid program. In addition, U.S. consulates
abroad have just started to reopen
and process applications for new student visas.
The controversy began in early
July, when ICE unveiled a directive that prohibited all international
students from returning to or remaining in the United States if their college
or university went all-online. After Harvard University and MIT filed a lawsuit
challenging the policy—which would have put hundreds of thousands of students
already in the United States at risk of having their F-1 visas revoked—the
Trump administration rescinded
it.
On a related note, members of
Congress are calling on DHS to allow new international students into the
country, regardless of the status of their program of study.
On Aug. 13, Sen. Patty Murray
(D-WA) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) led 75 of their colleagues in the House and
Senate in a letter
to Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf calling on him to revise the ICE guidance,
writing that “ICE should not be creating disparate treatment between new and
existing students.”
“With respect to newly enrolled
international students, DHS should recognize that colleges and universities are
exploring a variety of instruction models, including hybrid in-person and
remote instruction as well as innovative attendance schedules, to best serve
students’ health and education needs simultaneously,” the lawmakers said. “Implementing
a blanket, one-size-fits-all policy in which all new international students are
banned from entering the United States shuts off avenues of instruction
unnecessarily.