US won't allow foreign students whose classes move online to stay in country, will withdraw visas

The United States of America (USA) on Monday said that it would not allow foreign students, whose classes have moved online in the fall semester for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, to remain in the country and might initiate removal proceedings in case the instructions are not adhered to.

"Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States," the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office said in a statement on this day.

The US ICE office, in its statement, added that the active students 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."

ICE said the State Department "will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States."

F-1 students pursue academic coursework and M-1 students pursue "vocational coursework," according to ICE.

Notably, most of the colleges and universities in the US have not yet made clear their plans going ahead in the fall semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. A number of schools, reports news agency AFP, are looking at a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction but some, including Harvard University, have said all classes will be conducted online.

Harvard has allowed 40% of its undergraduate pool to return to the university campus the instructions for the classes would be delivered online.

There were more than one million international students in the United States for the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).

That accounted for 5.5% of the total US higher education population, the IIE said, and international students contributed $44.7 billion to the US economy in 2018.

The largest number of international students came from China, followed by India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.

This comes amid a series of measures taken by the US administration, whereby critics have accused the country's president, Donald Trump, of implementing such steps in the garb of pandemic response that are allegedly aimed at realising the president's longstanding goal of limiting immigration to the United States.

Earlier, Trump had suspended temporary work visas, including H-1B, for foreigners till the end of the year. It marked the latest effort to bar the entry of immigrants to the country.

As a precursor, Trump had earlier in April put a temporary block on some foreigners from attaining permanent residence in the United States. He had also revised border policies, allowing rapid deportation of immigrants caught at the border and cutting off access to the US Asylum system.

The US government had also closed non-essential travel across the international borders with Mexico and Canada, a step that has been extended several times over.

It is to be noted that Donald Trump's strict stance on immigration, including travel bans and migrant detentions, is central to his pitch for re-election at the 2020 United States presidential election.