Just as 23-year-old Paolo Bompieri began training for his last tennis season as a Queens University Royal, ICE announced international students have to leave the country if all their classes are online because of the pandemic.
“Not the best way to end a tennis career, you know?” Bompieri said. “Maybe I’ll [wait] for things to settle down and, you know, get back to normal -- if it's, like, even possible.”
The rising senior studying business administration and math has already had a rough year. His team’s promising spring season was cut short and plans of reuniting with his family back in Verona, Italy, this summer were canceled. The region in Italy where he's from was one of the hardest hit in all of Europe.
“I was home last summer for a little bit,” he said. “Of course, my mom wanted me to go home, you know, because I hadn’t been for a while.”
Now he may be heading home sooner than expected, and for good, unless his university comes up with a plan to keep international students here.
Bompieri and his classmates are hopeful.
“I know that Queens is gonna try everything to find a way around this rule," he said, "so I'm pretty confident, things are going to be fine.”
Ten percent of undergraduate students at Queens are international. University leaders say they plan to offer “hybrid” courses -- where instruction is both on-campus and online. This would keep these students, with F-1 visas, eligible to stay in the U.S.
M-1 visas, on the other hand, are given to students interested in going to vocational schools, like the Academy of Aviation in Gastonia. Forty percent of students in the Academy are international. Director Bianca Baldwin says there’s less risk for international students on M-1 visas to have to leave since vocational training is very hands-on.
“Obviously you can’t fly online and obtain a license,” she said. “There is some simulation allowed in advanced simulators, but those are within the school and there are only certain percentages.”
Davidson College tweeted that it will do all it can to protect students, no matter their country of origin. Farther east, Duke University also shared a statement in support of students, but haven’t released a plan on how.
Let us not mince words: Davidson College will do all we can to protect our students no matter their country of origin.
— Davidson College (@DavidsonCollege) July 7, 2020
Meanwhile, MIT and Harvard are jointly suing ICE over the new guidelines. In a statement, MIT called the regulations unlawful and disruptive and says it makes students question whether they are truly welcome in the U.S.
Laura Brache is a Report for America corps member and covers immigration and the Latino community in Charlotte for WFAE and La Noticia.
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