Trump’s #StudentBan Part of a Continuing Attack on International Students

On July 6, the Trump administration announced an ICE rule change that will deny student visas to international students whose coarse load is fully remote. One week later, they rescinded the rule in the face of protestations that a rule rescission was not merited in light of the continuing pandemic, including lawsuits from Harvard and MIT, the University of California, and the state of California. A new FAQ has been posted to the ICE website and more guidance is expected to clarify questions such as how the rules apply to new international students who have not yet arrived in the U.S. and who ICE says “should remain in their home country” and whether they will retain eligibility for OPT. The fluctuation shows the Trump administration’s ambivalence toward merit-based migration, with nearly one million students who study in the U.S. narrowly escaping Trump’s ire in the most recent round of attack.

The ICE rule is not the only recent policy change to target international students. As this CNBC video explains (and here), international students are part of a broader attack on legal migration hastened by COVID-19 travel restrictions. (Disclosure: I appear at 2:50, 11:00, 15:40 and make a statement to this effect.)

MHC