Lift ICE restrictions on foreign students attending online courses

The regulation change announced by ICE on July 6 is unnecessary, unfair, and dangerous for the students affected by it. It bars students from re-entering the US, or threatens with deportation those who already are here, if they are attending a university that is only offering online courses due to COVID-19. This restriction has multiple unacceptable aspects:
1. It is unnecessary. ICE's role is to protect the United States against people who wish to enter illegally or with malicious intent. Students with a valid student visa do NOT meet this definition.
2. It is impractical. As the impact of coronavirus changes rapidly in various states and counties, universities are likely to rapidly change their teaching mode, starting or stopping in-person teaching from time to time. The regulation would force students to stay away when the courses are all online, allow them to come back when the courses are in-person or hybrid, send them away again if there is a reversal, etc.
3. It is costly. Many of the affected foreign students do not have the financial means to pay for extra airplane tickets home during the times when the regulation would ban them from the U.S.
4. It is dangerous. Putting those students on long international flights during the pandemic is dangerous to their health. It could arguably cause the death of several of them.
5. It is unfair. Some of these students would be back home in hostile conditions, or in a place where Internet is non-existent or of poor quality, or in family lodgings that are inconvenient for distance learning. Therefore they would not be in a position to continue their studies.

The U.S. has granted these students visas to study in this country. This contributes to the reputation of this country as the world leader in higher education and research. The regulation changed announced by ICE on July 6 defeats this purpose. It is onerous, unfair, impractical, and unnecessary. It couldn't be better written if the motivation was actually xenophobia rather than the purported goal of protecting the U.S., which it does not achieve. This regulation change must be rescinded.