NEW YORK: Thousands of foreign students in the United States, including those from South Asian countries, face the dual challenge of contracting the virus or being deported after the Donald Trump administration announced the new visa restrictions.
Pakistani student Taimoor Ahmed is one of those foreigners enrolled in American universities who now fear for his future.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) announced this week that foreign students whose full courses have moved online due to the coronavirus pandemic must return to their home country.
"They could be affected if they don't offer any kind of in-person class," said Taimoor Ahmed, an information technology student at Cal State University in Los Angeles.
"I am concerned. This may potentially change my future and my plans," the 25-year-old told AFP.
Harvard and MIT launched a lawsuit on Wednesday, asking the court to revoke the order that Harvard President Lawrence Bacow said had thrown higher education in the United States "into chaos."
But the action has done little to ease the concerns of foreign students, of whom there were more than a million in the United States in 2019, a doubling in 20 years, according to the Institute of International Education (EEI).
"I'm actually a little scared," said an Indian graduate student at a major Texas university, who asked not to be identified.
He planned to continue online classes in the fall but is now forced to return to campus, in a state where COVID-19 cases are on the rise or face deportation.
"I am talking to many people who are really scared, (they are) alone in a different country.
"I have no one to take care of me if I get sick. The cost of medical treatment in the United States is much, much more than the country I come from," added the 25-year-old.
The students see themselves as collateral damage in Trump's aggressive push to force universities and schools to reopen entirely in September amid his re-election campaign.
An Indian graduate studying electrical engineering at one of Arizona's top universities, where the virus is also emerging, fears he will have to risk his health to continue his research and mentoring of younger students.
"The rule is really cruel," he told AFP.
More than 4,000 foreign students attend California public universities, and another nearly 5,000 in Harvard, Massachusetts, establishments that plan to offer education online only this fall.
About 84 percent of universities plan to offer a hybrid classroom and online class system, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education website, which would save students from deportation.
- 'Unfair' -
However, many students fear a resurgence of the pandemic later this year, which could see all classes online, forcing them to leave the country.
"I think it is really difficult to control the spread of the virus on such a densely populated campus," said the Arizona student, who asked not to be identified.
"It just seems really unfair to me that the virus that is getting bad is something that international students, who don't necessarily have to play a role in the spread of the virus, would have to suffer from," he added.
She says she will live in a "permanent state of anxiety" until her work and thesis defense are completed in November.
"If my visa becomes invalid, I have invested three years of my hard-working life to obtain this title, so it would be very bad."
Students are not the only ones interested: Universities themselves are concerned that Trump's immigration policies are making their institutions less attractive.
They fear to lose foreign students at cheaper universities in Europe.
"These decisions risk damaging one of the strongest assets in the United States, which is our world-class and best-in-class international education system," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the United States Immigration Council.
The policies already seem to be having an effect.
The Indian engineer in Arizona is no longer sure if she will stay in the United States after completing her master's degree.
"Given the trend of how the United States administration deals with immigrants and people on temporary visas here, I still doubt," he said.
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