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One of the most notable recent pushes of the Trump Administration has been to strongarm schools into opening in the fall. President Trump has threatened to pull federal funding from schools that fail to do so. This is in spite of the ongoing threat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Foremost among his administration’s threats is a change in rules for international college students’ visas.
The change mandates that international students aren’t to be allowed to stay enrolled at US colleges if they are only taking online classes. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, however, is spearheading a suit against the Trump Administration.
“The Trump Administration didn’t even attempt to explain the basis for this senseless rule, which forces schools to choose between keeping their international students enrolled and protecting the health and safety of their campuses,” Healey told reporters. The suit has been filed by seventeen states and the District of Columbia.
The lawsuit is being leveled against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. ICE has received its fair share of negative press since Mr. Trump took office. Mr. Trump’s aggressive stance on immigration has been a sore spot for democrats since he entered office.
ICE maintains, however, that this move isn’t something new: historically, international students can’t receive visas to take only online classes.
The suit contends that the country should make an exception for the Fall 2020 semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midst of a pandemic, it would be bizarre to demand that students appear in-person for instruction. Schools are already scrambling to make plans for the fall semester. It will be severely impacted by the ongoing response to the pandemic.
The Trump Administration has effectively been ignoring COVID-19 and simply hoping it goes away. During a campaign rally, Trump suggested that he had ordered the country to slow down COVID-19 testing. His reasoning was that higher volumes of tests made the country look bad.
During the speech, it seemed that the president was suggesting that the presence of the cases themselves was not a problem, but their discovery was an embarrassment.
The virus has made it difficult for most older people to even leave their homes to purchase low sugar snack bars from the grocery store. It’s no surprise that many schools are opting to not group students together. Classrooms are often small and restrict students’ ability to socially distance from one another.
