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ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

ice.gov

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Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#61

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

zaroth wrote: post #47
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t blame ICE for not extending their exemption past the summer for online classes. 1. difficulty of returning home 2. risk of pandemic spread by returning home 3. internet connectivity issues 4. timezone issues 5. software availability issues 6. home suitability for studying 7. .... "I don't blame ICE". Destroy ICE. This is appalling. When I became a citizen 3 years ago, I told people that one motivation was t…

The schools really should have thought through of all this before canceling classes on all their students who depend so much on attending them. There’s no excuse for outright canceling classes. Classes can absolutely be held safely, if these universities simply chose to invest in the training, procedures, and equipment necessary to do so. Instead they chose to bank their tuition payments and setup a Zoom call. This i…

> There’s no excuse for outright canceling classes. Classes can absolutely be held safely,

Why do so few people actually charged with making this decision agree with you?

And US college is about a lot more than classes.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#62

Post by sailingparrot »

dsfdsfsdfasd wrote: post #48
usaar333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or fly out from the country with the highest number of infections Are there exemptions in place for when it is difficult to actually return to country of origin? (e.g. it remains very difficult to fly into China)

It's difficult, if not impossible, to fly to basically any country from the US. The EU is currently debating exemptions for spouses who have been separated, so I doubt they have exemptions for students. And even if the exemptions and all are sorted out, who thinks it's a great idea for a whole bunch of students to have to fly in what will now potentially be crowded planes, and then have to spend at least a couple of…

> The EU is currently debating exemptions for spouses who have been separated, so I doubt they have exemptions for students.

Presumably, most students kicked out of the US would fly to their home countries where their status isn't "student".

> who thinks it's a great idea [...]

Most of Trump's voter base, sadly. Less immigrants in the U.S. is the only metric they care about.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#63

Post by mrlala »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.

100% agreed.

Civility be damned, this is straight up horrific to read.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#64

Post by mrlala »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #59
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.

Campuses and dormitories are closed though. Where are these people supposed to live?

They invented these things called apartments, they are pretty cool.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#65

Post by seanmcdirmid »

usaar333 wrote: post #26
_hszs wrote: post #13

Such pathetic leadership. International students already in the country must now either attend an in person class and risk their lives, or fly out from the country with the highest number of infections and spread it to their friends and family at home. Not to mention the loss to the research community. I can’t see anything that is to be gained from this, other than pandering to a xenophobic voter base.

> or fly out from the country with the highest number of infections Are there exemptions in place for when it is difficult to actually return to country of origin? (e.g. it remains very difficult to fly into China)

Only a visa extension (I-539), which will cost you > 400 bucks. We just went through with this for my mother in law, whose Delta return flight was cancelled a week before she was to go back after an almost 6 month stay. Fortunately, the USCIS is being pretty accommodating on letting people file extensions close to the end of their stays (usually you have to do it 45 days in advance), and she will probably go back before they even decide her case, hopefully (but she will have to carry around her I-539 app/judgement for awhile).

We've got her booked on a flight at the end of October, which is the best we can do right now. There are flights to China that you can get tomorrow through Taiwan or Hong Kong, but neither will allow you to board if you aren't Taiwanese or from Hong Kong (so no mainlanders). The remaining direct flights are in very limited supply and very hard to get and/or very expensive.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#66

Post by cm2187 »

dsfdsfsdfasd wrote: post #48
usaar333 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or fly out from the country with the highest number of infections Are there exemptions in place for when it is difficult to actually return to country of origin? (e.g. it remains very difficult to fly into China)

It's difficult, if not impossible, to fly to basically any country from the US. The EU is currently debating exemptions for spouses who have been separated, so I doubt they have exemptions for students. And even if the exemptions and all are sorted out, who thinks it's a great idea for a whole bunch of students to have to fly in what will now potentially be crowded planes, and then have to spend at least a couple of…

I haven’t heard of any country turning down their own nationals returning home.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#67

Post by wbazant »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.

I'm not sure, I think someone there has realised schools could essentially sell visas - if the course is fully online, the student just needs to pay for it, so they don't really need to be a real student.

I'm all for opening or abolishing borders (and keep recommending No Wall They Can Build (2016), free as a pdf to people), but I'm not sure if this is simple or that thing you said.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#68

Post by claudiawerner »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #59
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #46

Look, I know HN discussions try to keep things respectful, try to prevent flamewars, etc. but I say it's damn hard not to scream out loud "Fuck our current president" with BS like this. This is quite simply racist xenophobic pandering to his "base". International students don't have any control over whether a school is open in person or online, so why punish them like this. It's just evil.

Campuses and dormitories are closed though. Where are these people supposed to live?

If they really did have nowhere to live, and no funds, they would take the option to leave themselves. This policy takes away an option at least some of them would otherwise have. I'm very left-wing, but I think that anyone (left or rigth) on the libertarian section of the political compass should oppose a move like this kind of government policy.

Re: ICE changes exemptions for foreign students taking online courses in Fall 2020

#70

Post by eiji »

I doubt this decision is coming from the WH. It's a very simple calculation made by an agency with different priorities from what might be represented here in this forum.

You have thousands of foreigners, a large portion of which might not be in the country, waiting to return to the US to continue their studies. Many of those countries don't even allow US travelers to arrive at this time. Everybody is urging for caution, but that there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of individuals preparing to arrive back here, with possible infections, is something an agency might be concerned about. So naturally, why not prevent this travel from happening in the first place with a policy like that?

Of course it's a heavy handed approach, but so are the lock-downs and closed schools. So we go to great length trying to prevent the spread, we close schools for over 4 month, and some don't even want schools open in the fall, but somehow an influx of half a million students is something nobody should be concerned about?

Those are valid discussions to be had. Assuming right away that this is a way to force universities to open is not a very genuine way of thinking. You cannot encourage full online classes for health reasons, and applaud that on Monday, and on Tuesday complain we don't allow students from all over the world to return just to sit in front of a computer.

Everybody is laser focused on these case numbers, and some states will close schools due to high case counts in the fall, impacting millions of families. If you support that, you should probably also support any measures possible to keep case counts low, including discouraging international travel.

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