US Immigration Visa Guidelines

Why in news?

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US ICE) has given new regulations for international students’ visa.

What are the new US regulations?

• International students might have to leave the US if their universities moved classes entirely online in the upcoming semester.
• The agency also said that if students would not move back, they would face the risk of deportation.
• Students attending schools offering normal in-person classes can stay.
• However, they cannot take more than one class or three credit hours online.

What do these regulations mean for Indian students?

• Indian students currently enrolled in schools or programmes that are entirely online for the fall semester will have to come back home.
• They can stay back only if they take alternative steps like moving to a school that offer in-person instruction or choose a medical leave.
• As the pandemic forced American campuses to shut down, Indian students had to come back to India.
• These students would not be permitted to enter the US if their classes are entirely online.
• The same applies to prospective students who were going to join in the fall semester.

What would happen to those enrolled in universities with a blend of classes?

• Indian students enrolled in universities that have announced a hybrid blend of in-person and online classes for the fall semester can
  1. Remain in the US, and
  2. Those who returned to India will be allowed to re-enter the US.
• They will be allowed to take more than one class or three credit hours online.
• The university will have to certify to the US government that the student is not taking an entirely online course load for the fall 2020 semester.
• This exemption does not apply to F-1 visa students in English language training programmes.
• Also, this exemption does not apply to M-1 visa students, who are not permitted to enrol in any online courses.

Why has the US government announced these changes?

• International students in the US are required to do most of their learning through contact classes.
• The campus shutdowns forced the government to provide temporary exemptions for international students to take more online classes.
• However, these exemptions were made only for the spring and summer semesters.
• The Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), under the US ICE, did not say much on the reasons behind revisiting the above exemptions.
• Some are seeing this as a pressure tactic to get universities to reopen for the fall semester.

How will this affect international enrolment in US universities?

• The US universities have already made admission offers to international students.
• The SEVP announcement could encourage prospective students to defer their joining to the next semester.
• As for the active or enrolled students, they may even drop a semester.
• QS Survey of international students - Over half the respondents of the survey intended to defer their entry into foreign universities due to the Covid-related uncertainties.
• The revised US guidelines are only going to cement such intent further.
• This means revenues of US universities, especially those that have announced an online fall semester, are bound to get hit.

How have the US universities reacted to the new guidelines?

• Some universities have been quick on the uptake.
• They have changed their fall semester plans in less than a day of the government announcement.

Source: The Indian Express