By PTI |Washington |Published: December 24, 2018 12:14:45 pm
65 US universities oppose Trump administration’s visa policy changes for foreign students
With the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can set retroactive start dates for unlawful presence that begin the day after an individual's degree programme is complete or the day after a person's visa expires.
As many as 65 top US universities, including Harvard and MIT, have challenged the Trump administration in a court against its new stringent visa policy for foreign students, warning that the new ‘backdating’ rule will have a detrimental effect on America’s higher education system.
The new policy announced by the Trump administration in August places restrictions on overstaying a visa. Under longstanding immigration policies, when an individual is no longer authorised to remain in the US — such as when a visa expires — a period of “unlawful presence” begins. After six months of unlawful presence, an individual can be forced to return to their country of origin and subject to a three year bar from the US.
Prior to the August policy change, individuals only began to accrue unlawful presence the day after the government issued an official determination that the visa holder was “out of status”. With the new rules, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can set retroactive start dates for unlawful presence that begin the day after an individual’s degree programme is complete or the day after a person’s visa expires.
The top institutions, including Harvard, MIT, Cornell, Yale, and Princeton signed onto an amicus brief filed Monday, arguing that the new rule puts visa-holding students in a position to make “tough choices”. These institutions argue that the new policy’s use of a “backdated unlawful-presence clock” will render tens of thousands of F, J and M categories of visa holders subject to three and 10-year re-entry bars without any opportunity to cure.
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