The Donald Trump administartion has asked foreign students in the US, whose colleges have shifted to online teaching, to shift to schools that have in-person classes or leave the country, a move that potentially would affect thousands of Indian students in America.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Monday night issued a statement saying that Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.
The US wil also not issue visas to students whose colleges will offer full online courses from later this year.
Harvard is among the first universities that has shifted completely to online teaching till a vaccine is found to tackle Covid-19. Students, even who are in the campus, will have to learn courses remotely.
Foreigners constitute around 5.5% of the students enrolling in US colleges and contributed over $ 41 billion to the US in fiscal year 2019.India sent over 2 lakh students to the US in fiscal 2019, the largest after China.
ICE has threatened that students who don't comply with the new rules of finding a college that offers in-person teaching could be removed from the country.