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Comment by igneo676 | Hacker News Reader

No. Ideally, ICE would've announced this much sooner so that Universities could prepare. Or asked for an exception or the laws changed so that this isn't a problem.

Instead they chose to announce this and give universities 9 days to get everything figured out.

This is patently immoral for visa holders that would otherwise be allowed to be in the country given any other circumstances (ie not a global pandemic)

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What's worse is that they didn't just make a decision. They reversed their previous statement that universities were using as guidance up until this point.

Universities were expecting updated guidance for the fall. This didn't come as huge surprise to people who deal with this stuff.

Can they not continue their education online from their host countries and re-enter the US at a later time?

The problem is with international students already in the country risking traveling during a pandemic. Or the alternative: risking in-person classes.

The schools can just provide an in person class once a week and they could wear a mask in class and sit farther away from people. I think a lot of these students either don’t want to go to class or are working on their visa. I’ve been in their situation so I have a doubt ICE is randomly coming for them. If they did nothing wrong they can present their case in immigration court.

If you were actually someone who has been through the US immigration process, your lack of empathy is appalling.

> I’ve been in their situation

You’ve been in their situation of being forced to attend in-person classes during a pandemic?

You need to maintain continuous residency for OPT, so this ruins a student’s chance at staying in the US after they graduate.

The timing is also incredibly sudden. Graduate students have been in the US for 5-10 years. They have leases and cars and friends. Giving them a few weeks before deporting them is cruel.

> Giving them a few weeks before deporting them is cruel.

This is the intention of the Trump admin's policy: discouraging people from immigrating by whatever ugly means necessary, no matter if illegal or not. This has been a consistent line from the beginning with the infamous "muslim ban".

Wouldn't Graduate students be exempt from this to begin with? At least at the Ph.D level, past the first year or two you aren't even taking classes, the whole point of the degree is the research. They are also usually employed by the University as teaching assistants. How would this law impact them?

Note: I support the lawsuit, I have many friends who are or were international students, I live in Boston, just wondering how this would affect research-based grad students.

I don't know since I am not a lawyer.

I do know that I have faculty friends who have had their grad students come to them in tremendous distress related to this policy. So at least some people believe that this would deport graduate students who have advanced to candidacy.

Most graduate students are in the US on F-1 visas [1] and still need to maintain a minimum course unit enrollment per semester in order to be in status [2]. IANAL, but I would assume they're not exempt from the new in-person requirement for their registered courses.

[1] https://educationusa.state.gov/your-5-steps-us-study/apply-y...

[2] https://ois.usc.edu/students/maintainingstudentstatus/, https://international.northeastern.edu/ogs/maintaining-statu..., etc. (many schools have some version of this FAQ page on their websites)

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