E
very time we think there is a bottom, we are reminded that the Trump administration is in fact a dark, bottomless pit of racism, xenophobia, and cruelty. Every time we think it can’t get any worse, it gets worse.
The latest act of malignity is the decision on Monday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that international students whose colleges are offering courses exclusively online as a consequence of the pandemic will not be issued student visas or otherwise be allowed to enter or remain in the United States. “Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status. If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”
The statement itself is both ignorant and ominous. As anyone with even a casual knowledge of higher education would know, “transferring to a school with in-person instruction” is close to impossible in mid-July, let alone in the middle of a term, and “not limited to,” given the history of ICE, is chilling.
This is among the most mean-spirited policies we have seen from an administration that embraces meanness every day.
This past spring, ICE had waived the requirement that international students take in-person classes, in recognition of the extraordinary circumstances created by the spread of Covid-19. This made it possible for colleges to do the right thing and transition quickly to online delivery when the pandemic took hold. That waiver has not been extended into the fall, presumably because the pandemic is over, or a hoax, or harmless to 99 percent of people.
In truth, the ruling should be unsurprising, since it manages to accomplish in one stroke three of the central objectives of the current administration.
First and most important, it continues and extends the pattern of this administration of treating the pandemic not as a public-health emergency but as an opportunity to advance policy objectives, and in particular the objective of excluding as many immigrants as possible from the United States. No matter if these immigrants are permanent or temporary: the fewer the better.
Second, it maintains the charade that the pandemic is over and that the United States is “open for business” by pressuring colleges to offer their classes in person, regardless of the health risks to students and employees. This policy was announced, as it happens, on the same day that Donald Trump tweeted that “SCHOOLS MUST OPEN IN THE FALL!!!” Since the federal government has virtually no authority to force schools at any level to OPEN IN THE FALL, this policy is the next best thing: extortion. Hold in-person classes, no matter the guidance of public-health officials, or lose all of your international enrollments.
Third, it creates a host of problems — pedagogical, financial, ethical — for higher education, an industry that many conservatives, particularly Trumpian conservatives, absolutely love to hate.
The majority of colleges have, for a variety of reasons, announced at this point that fall classes will be offered in person or through a mix of in-person and online instruction, though some, including Harvard University, the University of Southern California, and the enormous California State system, have moved instruction wholly online. The truly awful part of ICE’s guidance, however, is that it makes no allowance for instructional changes that might be forced on a college by a change in circumstances, most likely a widespread outbreak of Covid-19 on campus or in the surrounding community. If courses are moved online, international students will quite simply be forced to leave, regardless of how difficult it is for them to do so.
Thus many colleges are likely to be forced this fall into the Sophie’s choice of moving online to protect public health and chasing away their international students, or keeping those students and making more people sick. Worse, international students might be forced to choose between their health and their education. Imagine being an international student with an underlying condition that puts you at increased risk of serious illness from the coronavirus and having to choose between endangering your health and continuing your education.
Layer on top of this the enormous financial and logistical challenges for international students of abruptly being forced to leave the United States. Many of those students have remained in this country through the summer. Many have signed leases or made other practical and monetary arrangements. Flights to various parts of the world are scarce and expensive. Most sane countries are banning entry from the United States, the coronavirus capital of the world, or forcing those who are arriving to quarantine.
There is no soft-pedaling this: It is among the most mean-spirited policies we have seen from an administration that embraces meanness every day.
We can expect legal challenges to this new guidance, though I have no idea if any are likely to succeed, and we can expect various professional organizations and universities to lobby Congress to force a change in the policy. What we should not expect is for ICE to have a change of heart, since this presupposes the existence of a heart.
Colleges, meanwhile, will probably try to develop workarounds that allow international students to remain in or enter the country, most likely by maintaining or adding a suite of in-person classes, perhaps including some designed expressly for those international students. There will probably be some faculty and staff members who are willing to put themselves at risk in support of the international students on their campuses.
And so it has come to this: If you are a college, choose whose health and well-being to put at risk; if you are an international student, choose between your health — maybe even your life — and your education.
There is no bottom.
