Student Union
Foreign Students Caught Between COVID-19 and ICE
Pat Janyamethakul, a Thai student at Virginia Tech, wanted to attend college in the U.S. because of “the country’s reputation in higher education.” The senior says that earning a degree here would “set her apart” from her peers back in Thailand.
Rafael Lima, a Brazilian student, has one more year to go at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. The communications major is on a four-year, full-ride scholarship, one of only four awarded to a scholar in his country by a private donor from Brazil.
Alejandra G'valen is from Mexico. She’s been in the U.S. for six years, earned her undergraduate degree and is finishing a master's degree in theological ethics at Lee University in Tennessee. G'valen says, “The experience we lived ... when the cartels terrorized our city, [was] extremely traumatizing.”
Janyamethakul, Lima and G'valen are among 1 million international students in the United States. This week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that F-1 visa holders will have to leave the country or risk deportation unless they take fall classes in person and not online only.
While 60% of colleges and universities say they will have most classes on campus in person, all schools are grappling with how to teach, while keeping their students and staff healthy and safe during the coronavirus pandemic.
Students say they are caught between being exposed to the coronavirus in the U.S., where cases are increasing, and the risk of losing their immigration status.
“If I cannot return to the United States due to the travel restrictions, the new ICE regulations suggest that my visa status will be terminated,” Brazilian Dan Setton, a rising junior at the University of Evansville in Indiana, said.
“This is completely unconscionable and arbitrary as I haven't done anything wrong. I know a lot of students in my situation and some that will now have to leave the U.S. -- in the middle of a pandemic -- because their schools are going fully online,” Setton said.
Lima says he worries about many things, his scholarship near the top of the list.
“I don't know how that will affect my scholarship,” he says. “One of the requirements of my scholarship is maintaining full regular standing [over] eight semesters … attending classes in person and keeping your visa active. … I don't even know, for example, if I take online classes in Brazil, I will receive a part of my scholarship or none of my scholarship money at all. So there's, there's still that that I have to figure out.”
Nine percent of 1,090 U.S. universities -- or 98 institutions -- are planning for a fall semester exclusively online, according to the Chronicle for Higher Education, which since March has been tracking which colleges and universities will teach online, in person or a hybrid of both.
An additional 24% say they are planning a hybrid model (part in class, part online), and 7.2% undecided or undeclared. Sixty percent say they are planning for an in-person semester.
Virginia Tech is planning a hybrid model this fall. Janyamethakul says she fears being infected by the coronavirus if she returns to Virginia Tech because “no one is willing to heal you, and not to mention the lack of PPE and health care facilities in the United States.”
ICE’s new regulation conflicts with colleges’ and universities’ teaching plans for the fall semester, as well as international students and their immigration status.
Various school and work visas seem to be increasingly difficult to obtain, she says, and “worst of all, I have to risk my life by traveling, risking contracting COVID-19.”
“The rules keep changing and the university keeps postponing regulations in regards to international students because they are waiting for DHS to publish a Temporary Final Rule in the Federal Register,” Janyamethakul said. “The current regulations are pretty much for citizens and all the options given to us are pretty much all disadvantageous.”
Lee University, G'valen’s college, is one of 60% of U.S. universities planning to resume in-person classes and activities this fall, according to the university’s website.
“If the plans don't come through, and let's say they don’t make a final decision by August, I have nowhere to go. I am in limbo, together with many other students,” G'valen said.
If she is unable to return to campus, G'valen “would have to move further to the center of Mexico with some distant cousins” until the pandemic is over.
Some universities are making accommodations.
Columbia University in New York says it will offer one-credit classes in person to international students so they meet ICE’s requirements and can come back or stay in the U.S. “We want our international students to be able to complete their studies here if possible,” officials said in an email to the university community.
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— myesha thee stallion (@myeshachou) July 8, 2020
“For the large community of international students who cannot come to Columbia because of the pandemic, we will be adapting our network of Columbia Global centers in new locations to provide in-person academic and peer engagement.”
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— myesha thee stallion (@myeshachou) July 8, 2020
Freshmen and sophomores will be on campus in the fall, juniors and seniors in the spring. International students will be welcome on the New York City campus year-round.
Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed suit Wednesday against the Department of Homeland Security -- ICE’s federal parent agency -- to stave off the action.
And students have launched online petitions, including one on the White House website, a site created in 2001 by the Obama administration.
A petition with more than 308,000 signatures Wednesday afternoon on Change.org requests that F-1 and M-1 students be able to remain in the U.S. with online-only classes.
“I just want to try to get back to my normal life,” Lima laments, calling the year so far “really chaotic.” He was studying abroad in Belgium this winter when the coronavirus pandemic erupted. After 27 hours of travel that wove north and south before landing in South America, the Brazilian tested positive for COVID-19.
“Just the feeling of me being back in, like, a college dorm where I have, like, all my stuff sorted out,” he said in a Skype interview with VOA. “When I only have to worry about studying, instead of worrying about my visa, worrying about my health, worrying about not affecting my family, worrying about, like, a myriad of stuff.”
“I was really looking forward to that,” says Lima, who has just his senior year to finish.
“I really don't know how, how am I going to be able to do that this semester with all the restrictions that I have to face right now,” he asked.
Ruby Rosenthal and Aline Barros contribued to this report.
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Pro-Palestinian protests spread on US university campuses
U.S. university campuses are seeing pro-Palestinian protests daily. Students are demonstrating against the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and demanding that humanitarian aid be allowed to flow into the territory. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.
US police clash with students who demand colleges cut financial ties to Israel
Police tangled with student demonstrators in the U.S. states of Texas and California while new encampments sprouted Wednesday at Harvard and other colleges as school leaders sought ways to defuse a growing wave of pro-Palestinian protests.
At the University of Texas at Austin, hundreds of local and state police — including some on horseback and holding batons — clashed with protesters, pushing them off the campus lawn and at one point sending some tumbling into the street. At least 20 demonstrators were taken into custody at the request of university officials and Texas Governor Greg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.
A photographer covering the demonstration for Fox 7 Austin was arrested after being caught in a push-and-pull between law enforcement and students, the station confirmed. A longtime Texas journalist was knocked down in the mayhem and could be seen bleeding before police helped him to emergency medical staff who bandaged his head.
At the University of Southern California, police got into a back-and-forth tugging match with protesters over tents, removing several before falling back. At the northern end of California, students were barricaded inside a building for a third day at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. The school shut down campus through the weekend and made classes virtual.
Harvard University in Massachusetts had sought to stay ahead of protests this week by limiting access to Harvard Yard and requiring permission for tents and tables. That didn't stop protesters from setting up a camp with 14 tents Wednesday following a rally against the university's suspension of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Students protesting the Israel-Hamas war are demanding schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling its monthslong conflict. Dozens have been arrested on charges of trespassing or disorderly conduct. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.
Columbia University averted another confrontation between students and police earlier in the day. The situation there remained tense, with campus officials saying it would continue talks with protesters for another 48 hours.
On a visit to campus, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called on Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to resign "if she cannot bring order to this chaos."
"If this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard," he said.
Shafik had set a midnight Tuesday deadline to reach an agreement on clearing an encampment, but the school extended negotiations, saying it was making "important progress."
On Wednesday evening, a Columbia spokesperson said rumors that the university had threatened to bring in the National Guard were unfounded. "Our focus is to restore order, and if we can get there through dialogue, we will," said Ben Chang, Columbia's vice president for communications.
Columbia graduate student Omer Lubaton Granot, who put up pictures of Israeli hostages near the encampment, said he wanted to remind people that there were more than 100 hostages still being held by Hamas.
"I see all the people behind me advocating for human rights," he said. "I don't think they have one word to say about the fact that people their age, that were kidnapped from their homes or from a music festival in Israel, are held by a terror organization."
Harvard law student Tala Alfoqaha, who is Palestinian, said she and other protesters want more transparency from the university.
"My hope is that the Harvard administration listens to what its students have been asking for all year, which is divestment, disclosure and dropping any sort of charges against students," she said.
Columbia encampment inspires others
Police first tried to clear the encampment at Columbia last week, when they arrested more than 100 protesters. The move backfired, acting as an inspiration for other students across the country to set up similar encampments and motivating protesters at Columbia to regroup.
On Wednesday about 60 tents remained at the Columbia encampment, which appeared calm. Security remained tight around campus, with identification required and police setting up metal barricades.
Columbia said it had agreed with protest representatives that only students would remain at the encampment and they would make it welcoming, banning discriminatory or harassing language.
On the University of Minnesota campus, a few dozen students rallied a day after nine protesters were arrested when police took down an encampment in front of the library. U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, whose daughter was among the demonstrators arrested at Columbia last week, attended a protest later in the day.
A group of more than 80 professors and assistant professors signed a letter Wednesday calling on the university's president and other administrators to drop any charges and to allow future encampments without what they described as police retaliation.
They wrote that they were "horrified that the administration would permit such a clear violation of our students' rights to freely speak out against genocide and ongoing occupation of Palestine."
Netanyahu encourages police response
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on U.S. college campuses in a video statement released Wednesday, saying the response of several university presidents has been "shameful" and calling on state, local and federal officials to intervene.
Students at some protests were hiding their identities and declined to identify themselves to reporters, saying they feared retribution. At an encampment of about 40 tents at the heart of the University of Michigan's campus in Ann Arbor, almost every student wore a mask, which was handed to them when they entered.
The upwelling of demonstrations has left universities struggling to balance campus safety with free speech rights. Many long tolerated the protests, but are now doling out more heavy-handed discipline, citing safety concerns.
At New York University this week, police said 133 protesters were taken into custody and all had been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges. More than 40 protesters were arrested Monday at an encampment at Yale University.
Columbia University demonstrators in talks with administration officials
Officials at Columbia University were continuing talks Wednesday with student demonstrators from the Gaza Solidarity Encampment as the protest reaches a full week.
At 9:41 p.m. Tuesday, university President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik sent an email to the Columbia community setting a midnight deadline for an agreement to be reached about dismantling the encampment and dispersing the protesters.
“I very much hope these discussions are successful,” she wrote. “If they are not, we will have to consider alternative options for clearing the West Lawn and restoring calm to campus so that students can complete the term and graduate.”
As midnight passed, Columbia University Apartheid Divest posted a statement on X saying, “We refuse to concede to cowardly threats and blatant intimidation by university administration. We will continue to peacefully protest.”
The statement also said the university had threatened to call the National Guard. But after visiting the university earlier in the week, New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Tuesday she had no plans to deploy the National Guard.
As midnight approached on Tuesday, a student organizer announced that the deadline had been extended to 8 a.m. Wednesday.
At 4:09 a.m., the Office of the President sent an email saying the discussion deadline would be extended for 48 hours, given the constructive dialogue, and the university would report back on progress.
The email announced that leaders of the student encampment had agreed to remove a significant number of tents, get non-Columbia affiliates to leave the encampment and comply with New York Fire Department requirements. They also agreed to ensure that the encampment is “welcome to all” and to prohibit “discriminatory or harassing language.”
This development comes nearly a week after more than 100 students were arrested at the school on April 18, after Shafik authorized police to clear away protesters. Some of the students received suspension notices from the school.
Columbia’s action prompted an onslaught of pro-Palestinian demonstrations at other universities and responses from faculty and politicians.
Students at other campuses, such as Yale, Stanford and New York University, have also rallied around the Palestinian cause, calling for their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel and for a cease-fire in Gaza. Many also have put up tent encampments on their campuses. About 150 students and faculty were arrested at New York University Monday night.
Columbia also announced Tuesday morning that classes on the Morningside main campus, where the protests are taking place, will be offered in a hybrid format for the remainder of the spring semester. The last day of classes is April 29.
- By VOA News
Paper: International students faced extra pandemic challenges
Astrobites, which describes itself as "a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy since 2010," focuses on the challenges international students faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It examines a paper published in the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education entitled The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on International Students in a Public University in the United States: Academic and Non-academic Challenges.
Read the Astrobites article here. (April 2024)
- By VOA News
15 cheapest US universities for international students
Yahoo!Finance has compiled a list of the 15 cheapest U.S. universities for international students.
Among them: Arizona State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Michigan State University.
Read the list here. (March 2024)
