Mitchell Urges Biden to End Restrains on Foreign Students

Key Highlights 

• Regulation on ‘duration of status’ of international students
• To remove the proposed rule and interim final rules.
• To make sure that the Optical Training Program stays in its place.

On behalf of 43 US University associations, Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education (ACE), has written to President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, asking them to make American Colleges and Universities the best destination to pursue higher studies for international students and scholars.

To achieve this goal, Mitchell said that the Biden Government must consider the following points:

• Withdraw the regulation that proposed limiting the ‘duration of status’ of international students and making a fixed admission time. 

Mitchell says, “The amount of time the Trump administration proposes to give students is less than the average amount of time it takes an international student to complete his or her education. Such a policy is not fair to international students or institutions,”

• To remove the proposed rule and interim final rules imposed by the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security. The interim final rules make it an expensive and challenging process for an individual to get an H-1B visa.

She mentioned, “The business and higher education communities vigorously oppose the proposed rules, and two lawsuits have already been filed to block them. In addition, the proposed rule regarding subject caps will make it difficult for recent international students graduating from US institutions to participate in the H-1B programme.”

• To make sure that the Optical Practical Training stays in its place, as it was during Obama’s administration. During the Trump administration, there was a constant warning hint that it might change OPT. It created a discouragement for students to enroll in a USA University for post-secondary education. For most international students OPT program is a pathway to get an H-1B visa.

According to estimations more than 1700 researchers and 5000 assistant professors have H-1B visas. Mitchell hopes that these demands “could and should” carry out quickly by the new US administration once sworn in January.