On July 7th, 2020, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued new guidance on the F-1 student visa provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. International students enrolled in a fully online curriculum will have ten days to leave the United States or be subject to deportation.

BU’s Learn fromAnywhere (LfA) hybrid teaching modality will justify continuing status, so BU students who can travel to the United States should be able to maintain their F-1 visa status. However, given the ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the United States, it is realistic to fear that the University could be forced to switch to a fully online model. This means that up to 11,000 Boston University students would be at risk for deportation. 

In an email to the Boston University community on July 9th, President Brown affirmed that the University is committed to “do all we can to ensure international students can continue their studies.” President Brown also explained that the University was “speaking out forcefully about this new guidance in public forums, with our legislative delegation, and in concert with other educational institutions and organizations.”

We appreciate this statement more than words can say, yet we are asking today that the University does more to protect us from these senseless and heartless new regulations. On July 8th, 2020, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by Northeastern University, announced that they would sue I.C.E. in an effort to block the regulation. We ask that Boston University joins Harvard, M.I.T., and Northeastern in this lawsuit. The more large, prestigious, and global universities stand together for international students, the more likely the lawsuit is to be successful.

As international students, we are anxious to be subject to unforeseen school closure. Thousands of us have had to get on the very last flights to our home countries in the fall, and we have no way of knowing whether we could even get home halfway through the semester, as many countries have issued bans on travelers coming from the United States. We are worried that after paying full tuition, plus room and board, we will be asked to leave behind our chance at the education we signed up and are fighting for, not to mention our friends and partners, to return home and follow classes in different time zones, in some cases without proper technology or reliable internet connections. 

After repeated issues in communication and regulations regarding international students, the University has taken many steps to accommodate students through policy adjustments and to build community through online events. We would like to thank BU for its increased efforts to support international students and ask that the University stands with us again at this very important time.

Sincerely,
International Students at BU