Trump Administration Rescinds Plans to Barr Foreign Students Taking Online-Only Classes from Living in US

On Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump's administration decided to revert its previous controversial plan to bar international students from living within the United States if they were to take online-only classes.

Turning the wheel back

The decision came after a massive number of lawsuits challenged the policy and criticism from multiple educators and local state governments.

According to USA Today, the decision was announced by a Massachusetts judge in a federal court hearing after Harvard University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) filed a case against the policy last week.

Judge Allison Burroughs stated the two universities; request for the court to obstruct the rule was moot after Trump's administration decided to retract the policy.

On Monday, 18 state attorney generals had filed to sue the Department of Homeland Security over its decision with the legislation which would have caused international students to be barred from the country if they chose to enroll in online-only classes this fall amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic.

L. Rafael Reif, the president of MIT, expressed his celebration of the government's decision to rescind the policy. On Tuesday, Reif posted on Twitter stating the case revealed that the lives of students and personnel were at stake with the policy putting them in harm's way.

David Leebron, the president of Rice University, told reporters he was delighted to hear the news as the government announced the reversal of the policy, as reported by CNN.

The university president said he and his team believed the policy's rules were misguided and wicked, adding it did not serve the universities nor their students or even the country's purpose and vision.

Also Read: Trump Signs Executive Order Against China, Ending Special Treatment of Hong Kong

Student lives at risk

The policy resulted in multiple students bracing for the effects and being forced out of the United States or choosing to transfer to a school which offered both online and personal classes.

A molecular biology student, Shreeya Thussu, told reporters that the abrupt decision to pass the policy had inadvertently thrown her life into chaos during an already taxing time amid the coronavirus pandemic. Thussu has already been attempting to apply to a medical school.

The student said she was taken aback when she saw the news while she was browsing on social media on Tuesday afternoon. Thussu immediately contacted her friends and fellow students, looking to confirm what she had just seen online.

Before the rescindment of the policy, Thussu stated her school was sending out online emails to its students but has given no details of the news. The emails were urging students to quickly enroll in person-classes if possible, leading many to become anxious and fear for their lives.

According to Politico, more than one million international students are studying in US colleges and universities that would have been affected by the new policy, 57 percent of which came from China, India, or South Korea.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the National Foundation for American Policy announced the enrollment of new international students at US universities could fall to an all-time low since the end of World War II. The drastic decline would come as a result of travel bans and several other difficulties.