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Charles Bonkowsky: The needless harm of the new international student policy

(Poorna Gunasekera via AP) In this image taken in Sept. 2017, Dr. Poorna Gunasekera, back left, poses for a photo at a dinner to celebrate international students attending the medical school at Plymouth.

On July 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that international students will not be allowed to remain in the U.S. if their college is fully online, that they would be forced to transfer to a school offering in-person classes, despite the fact that it’s bare weeks before the semester is set to begin, or leave the country.

These new policies are incredibly harmful and self-defeating, with the potential to cripple a huge facet of the U.S. economy or seed hundreds of lethal coronavirus outbreaks across the country.

U.S. higher education generates $43 billion in exports (putting it in the top 10 of U.S. exports, below pharmaceuticals and above organic chemicals), creates middle-class jobs across the country and is one of the few industries that can’t easily be outsourced.

There are more than a million international students studying in the United States — and they want to stay. In the spring, as the pandemic surged, over 90% chose to continue their programs of study at American universities rather than return home.

But when the fall semester comes, universities in other parts of the world are in a much better position to reopen. In Taiwan, for instance, there have been no more than seven confirmed cases over their entire university system since the beginning of the pandemic, and their system has successfully adapted to the return of large numbers of Chinese students.

These foreign schools will be more than happy to take advantage of this administration’s choice to cause a mass exodus of students from our country. America has thrived because we attract brilliant young minds to our cities and schools. Why send them away?

Or universities could open. Except that, as astrophysicist Katie Mack states, “forcing universities to reopen for in-person teaching is like dropping cruise ships into the middle of every population center in America. Infection rates will skyrocket.”

Even during the summer, this trend has been evident, with hundreds of students and staff infected at the University of Washington and the University of Georgia. No one can say how the virus will spread in the fall, but it seems likely that forcing many thousands of young people together, indoors, will cause sharp spikes in the number of coronavirus cases.

Does the policy account for this possibility? It does, in the most cruel way possible. Students whose universities are forced to shut down because of new outbreaks are given no leeway whatsoever. The policy states that “if nonimmigrant students find themselves in this situation, they must leave the country or take alternative steps … such as transfer to a school with in-person instruction.”

Forcing international students to upend their education mid-semester benefits no one and will only serve to drive away global talent when the pandemic lifts.

I am grateful that my university, which has one of the highest numbers of international students in the United States, has spoken out against these policies. And I hope that Congress will follow their lead and protect not only students seeking to study and learn at our universities, but the entirety of American higher education.

Charles Bonkowsky

Charles Bonkowsky, Salt Lake City, is an undergraduate student at Columbia University in New York.