Trinity University Scrambles to Protect International Students After ICE Requires In-Person Classes

The vast majority of Texas universities are planning to open their campuses in the fall and hold at least some classes in person. That would, theoretically, give international students the opportunity to meet visa requirements.

But the rise of COVID-19 cases across the state is threatening those plans.

The University of Texas at San Antonio, for instance, announced Wednesday that it would hold the majority of its fall classes online and only offer select courses in person.

Contingency Planning

Other schools outside the state, including Harvard University, have announced plans to hold all fall classes online. Harvard, along with a number of other institutions, is now suing the Trump administration over the ICE guideline in federal court.

“Faculty have come out of the woodwork to let me know that, if we need to have an in-person class just for [international students], they will make that adjustment,” he added.

“These are people who have pre-existing conditions to people at the height of their physical fitness,” he continued. “They’re all volunteering to open a class or change a class so that an international student in their class can benefit.”

English professor Kelly Grey Carlisle — who is planning to teach her creative writing classes in a hybrid format with some instruction taking place in person, outdoors, and the rest online — is one of those professors.

After she saw the ICE announcement on Monday, she tweeted, “[If] you’re a Trinity international student who needs a non-online class and can’t find one that better fits your program, I will make room for you.”

In an interview with the Current, Carlisle said the ICE directive sets up dangerous and unnecessary choices for faculty and students alike.

“People have to put themselves at risk or they have to put their students at risk,” Carlisle said. “If we’re supposed to be promoting public health, this seems like a really unwise decision.”

Targeting Immigrant Populations

From the outset, the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response has targeted immigrants and other vulnerable populations.

In March, the Center for Disease Control implemented a guideline allowing ICE to deport any person who enters the country without authorization, even if they are making an asylum claim.

Both Nishikawa and Carlisle said that this ICE guideline has another ulterior motive: Trump has been quite clear about his desire for schools to reopen in the fall, and this measure, by itself, seems set to force universities’ hands.

“It feels like something that is meant to hurt higher education,” Carlisle said. “A lot of colleges really rely on international tuition dollars — so it’s like, either we’re going to take that [money] away from you and hurt your students, or we’ll make you take them, and maybe get sick, and hurt people that way.”

The importance of international student tuitions to higher education — especially to public institutions of higher education — is difficult to overstate.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, international students contributed $45 billion to the U.S. economy in 2018 — often paying full tuition fees at universities. In doing so, they subsidize the education of a number of domestic students.

With higher education already facing an uncertain financial future due to the pandemic, that tuition revenue is even more important.