Targeting international students a new low for the U.S.

More than 1 million foreign students face deportation if their universities ban in-student classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

By

Opinion

July 9, 2020 - 9:50 AM

University of Texas students Paula Arce, Isabel Llovet, Laura Castro and Bryan Salgado say goodbye to friend and fellow exchange student Isabel Lopez as she departs for Madrid in March amid the coronavirus pandemic. Under new federal visa rules, international students will not be permitted to stay in the country if colleges go completely online this semester. Photo by (Lara Korte/Austin American-Statesman/TNS)

The Trump administration has used the novel coronavirus as license to indiscriminately kill off and impede every sort of immigration — legal and illegal, permanent and temporary, work- and family-based. On Monday, it took aim at the more than 1 million international students enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities, threatening them with deportation if their classes move online, as many already have.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the announcement as a growing number of colleges, facing a widening pandemic, have shifted entirely or largely to virtual learning…

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