Photo from Flickr. Foreign students throughout the United States breathed a sigh of relief on July 14 after President Donald Trump’s administration decided to abandon its plans to send international students back to their home countries if all their classes would now be conducted solely online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did an about face after eight federal lawsuits were filed against the administration, together with hundreds of protests from colleges around the country.
For some Israeli students, the decision was an opportunity to look forward to the upcoming school year in the fall. For others, the decision came too late as they had already returned home.
Twenty-six-year old UCLA student Dan Knaan, arrived in the country last year on a student visa. “I was preparing mentally to go back home,” Knaan told the Journal. “We only have online classes and we are not going back to class this fall either. All of our classes are online.”
Knaan said he also was relieved because if he had been forced to go back to Israel and take his classes online, the 10-hour time difference would make it very difficult to attend.
“I already told my parents I might be coming home earlier than planned,” Knaan said. “I was so disappointed because I was waiting for a long time to get here and study at UCLA. This year was already ruined because of COVID-19, so to have to go back home? It was unthinkable. It would have made things much more difficult for me. I’ve already rented an apartment with roommates and I still need to make payments. It would have been a total waste of money.”
Alon Dvir returned to Israel when the pandemic hit and colleges shut down. Dvir is enrolled in a screenwriting course at UCLA Extension. Six months after he arrived in Los Angeles, the university closed. “I’m continuing with my course online,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Tel Aviv. “It’s not the same but I’m doing the best I can to enjoy the class and learn.”
“I used the [George Floyd] demonstrations as a background story for a film I created for my final. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I’d gone back to Israel, so there were some benefits. I was able to create my best work during this time.” — Yarden Shachar
He added he doesn’t regret his decision. “If I need to stay indoors most of the time, why not do it close to my family? I know some foreign students stayed in America because they spent a lot of money paying for a student visa and tuition. They felt they’d have wasted their money if they’d returned home,” he said. “Personally, I’m good with my decision. I’ve already enrolled in another course next semester. Hopefully, this time next year, I’ll be able to do it on campus.”
The fear of contracting COVID-19 was also a factor in one student’s decision to return home.
Orit Levy, a student at Los Angeles Ort College, went back to Israel in May after she realized the college wasn’t going to reopen any time soon. “My main concern was what I would do if I got sick,” she said. “Although I had purchased health insurance for the duration of my studies here, I don’t believe it would have covered me for a long period of hospitalization if I had the coronavirus. I figured it would be better for me to just go back home and return [to the U.S.] if things go back to normal. It’s extremely disappointing, but I’m not the only one in this boat. Many other students are dealing with the same situation.”
Students at prestigious universities like USC are reluctant to give up on their American academic experience, preferring to stay here. Some students in the artistic fields are taking inspiration from the crisis, using it to fuel their art rather than let it completely ruin their experience. Yarden Shachar, a student at USC majoring in cinematic arts said, “I used the [George Floyd] demonstrations as a background story for a film I created for my final. I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I’d gone back to Israel, so there were some benefits. I was able to create my best work during this time.”
He added that, like other foreign students, he was initially worried about the plan to strip visas from international students and then immensely relieved when the Trump administration abandoned the plan. “I guess the decision to let us stay in the U.S. is partially due to the government not wanting to lose foreign students,” he surmised. “I have one more year here and I wouldn’t have enrolled for next year if they didn’t let me stay in the U.S. Why spend so much money to study from back home?”
Immigration attorney Nitza Ben Yehuda told the Journal she believed the Trump administration’s initial decision to send students home was designed to pressure universities to reopen, for fear of losing the millions of dollars that international students bring in each year.
“The money that foreign students are bringing in is significant in the universities’ budgets,” Ben Yehuda said. “So, if the foreign students go back to their countries and don’t return, it’s a huge financial loss. The decision was made out of purely political reasons. I’m happy they backed away from it.”
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