Allowing F1 Visas to stay in the USA during online courses
Interest groups
Support
International F1 Visa Students
National Association of Foreign Student Advisors (NAFSA)
Administration of Colleges/Universities
Presidents' Alliances on Higher Education and Immigration
American Startup Companies
Oppose
US Government
US Citizenship and Immigration Services
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Republican Party
Legal Foundations
Trump Era
Centerpiece of his term was reform over immigration.
He Cancelled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is currently providing work authorization and temporary relief from deportation to approximately 690,000 unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children.
Reformed the American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act in 2017 to a point-based system.
Delayed the Implementation of international Entrepreneur Rule in 2017
A recent policy stripped international college students of their US visas if they're coursework is entirely online
Amendments/Laws
Immigration Act of 1990
Tripled number of visas for priority workers and professionals with US job offers
INA Amendments (Hart-Cellar Act)
established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor to the United States.
What the Policy says
File Lawsuits
Universities are able to file for lawsuits against new policy
Universities are pushing back by applying lawsuits against the "disturbing and cruel" new policies that will restrict students from getting a higher education and damaging to America's scientific leadership.
Limit Travelling
Limit the traveling of international students to reduce the likeliness of receiving/giving COVID to other students.
Forcing students to leave and come back to the US in the future causes unnecessary movement for students that can result in them contracting COVID
Spending for Visas
Universities can set aside certain amount of money to allow students to attend American schools
Rather than get paid by the government, Immigrant students with visas would be able to get paid by their school of choice in order to stay and continue their education at the universities.
In-class course-load
Requiring at least one in-class course would allow students with visas to stay since the rule only applies to students with only online courses.
Goals
Lowers unemployment rate
A study of American startup companies valued at $1 billion or more, it was found that nearly one quarter of such businesses had a founder who first came to the United States as an international student.
Evidence has been proven to show that Immigrants do not reduce employment rate for native-borns, therefore immigrants don't steal jobs from Americans.
The economic activity of foreign students supported over 455,000 American jobs.
Less Deportation
ICE reported that the average cost of a deportation was $10,854
Help boost the economy
International students contributed $39 billion to the US economy during the 2017-2018 academic year.
Most immigrants aren't eligible for welfare, unemployment, or food stamps because of their statuses.
Immigration reduces overall budget deficits and all levels of government agree the fiscal impact is positive
Immigrants contribute to 14.7% of all total output of the economy