Trump admin. RETREATS on deporting students with all-online courses this fall

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The Hill @thehill 11m
#BREAKING: Trump administration rescinds policy to strip visas from foreign students whose courses move online amid pandemic http://hill.cm/75gSyrh

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

((Greg Siskind))) @gsiskind 15m
So to summarize - The Trump Administration has rescinded the 7/6 F-1 students directive. Schools can go online if they want. No new I-20s needed. F-1 visas should be proceeding. Congratulations Harvard and the Wilmer Hale team. Big big win!

[gratuitous]

1. Another stupid idea sprung from the mind of Trump shot to pieces

But at least he got to make all them furrin students panic for a few days, so he got that satisfaction, the heartless bastard.

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3. and the temporary distraction

...from virus spreading, and looking the other way as Russia pays Taliban to kill our troops.

[True Blue American]

2. Was that the big announcement Trump

Promised after Biden’s excellent speech on creating a new economy safely?

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4. what could be bigger

...than today's 'eat cake' jobs initiative Donald and his child (work) bride, Ivanka, unveiled together?

Link to tweet

[frazzled]

5. Thank goodness

This was no small thing for colleges and universities across the nation. And it has been no small thing in my household.

Classes cannot go forward without certain registration levels, and while his undergraduate course for the fall is oversubscribed, my spouse's smaller graduate seminar is not filled (the department has many foreign grad students); and his graduate advisees (4 out of 5 of whom are foreign and currently in home countries) could be rocky if students don't come back or can't get visas. Some foreign students may still decide to defer or hold out a year before returning, but there is a greater chance that faculty won't have to drop courses, which by contract have to be made up later in the year. But who knows what the rest of the year will be like? Jobs, in addition to education, are at risk. Not to mention the financial stability of institutions, already suffering under the wrecking ball.

This may not end the problem for foreign students, on which most institutions of higher education desperately depend. But it may help.

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7. thanks for the personal perspective, frazzled

...

[genxlib]

6. OK, I guess we get to keep the Statue of Liberty for now.

I was starting to think we needed to forfeit it back to France.

It was just such a cruel and pointless (and even impractical) policy. That is the Trump admin in a nutshell