U.S. colleges sue DHS for harsh standards on international students |
Princeton University announced Dec. 21 that it is joining a lawsuit brought about by 65 U.S. colleges and universities who have sued the Department of Homeland Security for imposing harsher immigration standards on international students. The overwhelming majority of international students are from India and China. An initial draft of new DHS rules which went into effect last August proposed that an international student is out of status if he remains in the U.S. as little as one day after graduation or after finishing his optical practical training. The agency later amended its policies, declaring also that the unlawful-presence clock can be backdated to the day on which DHS concludes that the visa holder first fell out-of-status. Students who accrue unlawful presence are barred from returning to the U.S. for up to 10 years, depending on the amount of time they have overstayed their F-1 visas. Bans on returning to the U.S. begin after a student has overstayed more than 180 days. Doug Rand, former assistant director for entrepreneurship in the Obama White House who helped implement policies that affect foreign students, told India-West last May, after a draft of the proposal was announced: ``For generations, America has been the top destination for students from around the world, many of whom go on to contribute their talents to our economy and even become Americans over time.
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