The United States has stated that it will not allow foreign students taking online courses to stay in the country.
The United States said on Monday that it would not allow foreign students to stay in the country if all their classes were moved online in the fall due to the coronavirus crisis.
“Non-immigrant F-1 and M-1 students who attend schools operating entirely online may not complete a full online course load and remain in the United States,” US Immigration and Custom Enforcement said in a statement.
“Students currently active in the United States enrolled in such programs must leave the country or take other measures, such as transfer to a school with in-person instruction to stay in a regular situation,” said ICE.
“Otherwise, they could face immigration consequences, including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”
The ICE has stated that the State Department “will not issue visas to students enrolled in fully online schools and / or programs for the fall semester and that US customs and border protection will not allow these students from entering the United States. “
F-1 students take academic courses and M-1 students take “professional courses,” according to the ICE.
Most American colleges and universities have yet to announce their plans for the fall semester.
A number of schools are considering a hybrid model of face-to-face and online education, but some, including Harvard University, have said that all classes will take place online.
Harvard said 40% of undergraduates would be allowed to return to campus, but their education would be online.
There were more than a million international students in the United States for the 2018-19 academic year, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).
That made up 5.5% of the total U.S. higher education population, said the IIE, and international students contributed $ 44.7 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018.
The largest number of international students came from China, followed by India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
