North Texas colleges say they’ll accommodate foreign students amid new ICE rule

Iara Roberto has been pursuing her bachelor’s degree in the U.S. for the past four years.

She’s an international student from Argentina at the University of Texas at Arlington, but the U.S. has been her second home ever since.

Now, she’s afraid of being deported.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that if a university is only offering online courses, its international students will have to transfer to another university that offers in-person classes or face deportation.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” Roberto said. “So if we followed all your rules, why is this happening?”

Before the pandemic, foreigners in the U.S. on a F-1 or M-1 visa were only allowed to take a maximum of one online course per semester, but when COVID-19 hit, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Student and Exchange Visitors Program (SEVP) allowed those students to go all-online in the spring.

For international students to be in the U.S. this fall, their university will have to certify to SEVP that its “program is not entirely online, that the student is not taking an entirely online course load for the fall 2020 semester, and that the student is taking the minimum number of online classes required to make normal progress in their degree program.”

Universities vow to work with students

Several universities in North Texas and throughout the state have devised a hybrid approach for the fall, all this while knowing that there’s still no end in sight to the coronavirus pandemic.

Interim UT Arlington President Teik Lim said in a university-wide email on Wednesday that the institution is committed to supporting its international students by identifying solutions for them that comply with federal regulations.

“Our international students are being contacted directly with more information. We are also scheduling listening sessions for international students to receive further information and ask questions, for early next week,” he said.

In a statement to the Star-Telegram, Jeff Carlton, executive director of communications and media relations at UT Arlington, said the university will be evaluating this new policy change to come up with a detailed plan to work with international students.

“We are working with our academic advisors and our international students to find solutions that will help them maintain progress toward their degrees and make sure their course schedules meet all federal requirements,” Carlton said.

Richard Benson, University of Texas at Dallas president, said that the university will work to accommodate each international student so they can keep their student visa for the fall.

“As we have reviewed the information, it appears that these new modifications affect our students with F-1 visas who plan to start or continue study at UT Dallas in the fall semester,” Benson said in a news release. “Please know that we will do everything possible to help each student remain on track with their studies and to ensure each student graduates from UT Dallas.”

Lauren Jacobsen-Bridges, director of international student and scholar services at the University of North Texas, said in an email to students that her office will review the new modifications to the online course rule and will send international students some specific steps to take soon.

“We are here to serve you always and especially in times of uncertainty,” Jacobsen-Bridges said in the email. “Please continue monitoring your emails as we prepare specific actions for you to take and FAQs on our website.”

Suzanne Groves, a spokesperson for Tarrant County College, told the Star-Telegram that the college is currently evaluating the implications of this new policy change, so it doesn’t have any public comment or plan just yet.

Nephtaly Rivera, a spokesperson for Texas Wesleyan University, told the Star-Telegram that the university is moving forward with the hybrid approach, so its international students are expected to be back on campus in the fall.

“At this point, our plan is to return to campus this fall in a hybrid-class format, where students will be meeting for in-person instruction at least once per week,” Rivera said.

According to a NAFSA: Association of International Educators analysis, in the 2018-2019 academic year, international students contributed $41 billion to the economy and supported 458,290. In Texas alone, international students contributed $2.2 billion and supported 81,893 jobs.

On Wednesday, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sued the Trump administration in federal court, seeking to stop ICE’s new directive, according to The New York Times.

‘I felt so scared’

Going to college in the U.S. is something that Nithesh Bonugu, an international student from India, never thought he would do in his life.

He enrolled at Texas Christian University (TCU) in 2018 to study computer science, but now, he’s not sure what to expect for the fall.

“I have contacted some of my international friends here at TCU and some of them are still in the United States, but many of them have gone back to India and they’ve just accepted taking the classes online and not coming back,” Bonugu said.

Many colleges have already updated how each class is going to be delivered this fall — whether in-person or online — but at one point, Bonugu checked his updated course schedule and he saw that all of his classes are going to be online.

“I was tense. I felt so scared,” he said.

In a statement to the Star-Telegram, TCU officials say the university will work with “legal and professional organizations” to navigate this policy change.

“Texas Christian University values the intellectual and cultural diversity international students bring to campus and will work with our students, legal and professional organizations to make sure those contributions remain robust,” the statement reads. “TCU will welcome students back to campus Aug. 17 and our international students will have available a mixture of in-person and online classes that will facilitate advancement of their educational and scholarly pursuits.”

Bonugu says that he’s hopeful that the university will somehow take care of its international students.

“We did hear that they are working on something for international students and that they will let us know, maybe in a couple of days,” Bonugu said. “I think the office of international admissions at TCU is very helpful. I do believe that they will come up with a solution for this F-1 and M-1 crisis,” Bonugu said.

Making sense of new policy

Iara Roberto is a senior at UT Arlington and she currently lives with her aunt and uncle in Fort Worth. She said they had to calm her down because she became so overwhelmed with emotion.

“It was pretty much a shock,” she said.

Roberto said the announcement from ICE is unjust. She said that just to be in the U.S. studying is a hard process, students pay out-of-state tuition and applying for visas takes work.

Roberto has been in the U.S. since 2016 after leaving her home country of Argentina in search of a new life. She graduated from Tarrant County College in 2017 and in May 2021, she is scheduled to graduate from UT Arlington with a broadcasting and Spanish degree with a minor in journalism.

“Everything you’ve been building for years could vanish in one second,” Roberto said.

Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that if a university is online-only, there is no reason for an international student to stay in the country.

Cuccinelli said these rules will encourage schools to reopen in the fall. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to threaten cutting funds from schools that won’t reopen.

In the fall, Roberto said she will be taking two online classes and three hybrid in-person classes — which consists of in-person instruction and online — which she said makes her “safe” under the new guidelines, but she still feels uncertain.

The Department of State released a statement saying that a mixture of both in-person and online coursework will meet the requirements for non-immigrant student status.

Although universities throughout the country are still trying to make sense of the situation, people have already taken to the internet to advocate against this policy.

A petition has been circulating on social media calling for the federal government to allow international students to remain in the U.S. even if their university only offers classes via online instruction. The petition already has more than 230,000 online signatures.

Some have also taken to Twitter to talk about the important role that F-1 and M-1 visa-holding college students play in universities. Arlington native Ale Checka tweeted that her parents met at UTA when they both attended the institution as international students.

Other Twitter users like UT Arlington student Sam Dennehy tweeted about the “vital part” that international students play in a college’s culture.

This has also caused professors to look for creative solutions to help their international students.

UTA sociology professor David Arditi has offered to hold a course with any sociology student that needs an in-person class to meet the federal requirement.

Arditi said he was concerned that ICE is worried about online class requirements during a global pandemic. Although he would have to work outside his job requirements, it would help a student population that could be deported.

“I feel like it’s my job to stand up and make sure that doesn’t happen to people,” Arditi said.

This story was originally published July 9, 2020 at 6:00 AM.