On July 6th, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has made the following announcement regarding the visa regulation toward international students (F-1 students):

• All students who would like to enter or stay in the US with a F-1 visa must have in-person class during fall semester.
• If the student is taking online only classes, he/she will not be able to enter the U.S. with a F-1 visa. F-1 students who are currently in the U.S. will need to leave the country or seek for other measurement.
• Students taking hybrid model classes can enter the U.S. with a F-1 visa, and the school will need to provide information to the SEVP to verify the status.
• If the school operate under normal in-person classes, then the F-1 student may take a maximum of one class or three credit hours online.
• If the student changes his/her class schedule to online only classes, the school needs to notify SEVP immediately and the student needs to leave the country within 10 days.

This announcement has impacted more than one million international students and their schools, therefore, schools including Harvard, MIT and UCs have already filed complaint or lawsuit to the government regarding this new visa policy.
Since we are not sure if there will be more updates, we strongly recommend that you should contact your school/program immediate to prepare yourself for the fall semester.
If you plan to return to the campus:

1. Contact your school counselor, gain information about the latest quarantine regulation to see if you need to go back earlier.
2. Get a new I-20 from your school including updates about your studying status (hybrid classes)
3. Make sure that you have in-person classes scheduled for Fall and don’t take them out easily.

If you plan not to return to the campus:

1. To maintain your student visa eligibility, make sure that you enrolled in enough credits for the fall.
2. Before you return to the school for new semester, get a new I-20 to pass the immigration.

If you are a new student for fall, please contact your school for detail as well to confirm if you should file your visa application now. If all classes will be conducted online, there’s no need to apply for visa now since the AIT will not be able to process/pass it.
In the past few days, we’ve received numerous inquiries regarding the new visa regulation and here’s our analysis and update for your reference. Should you have further questions, please feel free to contact us at any time.