US to let Chinese students return for fall term

The United States government has announced that students from China will be exempt from the remaining travel bans related to COVID-19, but experts said the students still face hurdles such as visa-processing backlogs.

The US State Department said in a statement dated Monday that it "made a national interest determination" to exempt certain categories of travelers from the travel restrictions imposed by former US president Donald Trump's administration last year.

Those eligible for exemptions include students, academics, journalists and individuals "seeking to provide vital support for critical infrastructure", from China, Brazil, Iran, South Africa, the 26-nation Schengen Area in Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

In July, the Trump administration announced that international students in US educational institutions had to leave or would be prohibited from entering the country if their schools moved to online-only teaching in response to the pandemic.

Under the latest exemption, international students will need to have valid visas to attend universities for classes starting on Aug 1 or later, and they cannot enter the US more than one month beforehand.

All travelers still will be subject to a US requirement to present a negative coronavirus test taken within 72 hours of arriving.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Wednesday that China has noticed the latest development, calling it "a positive step taken by the US side".

"China's epidemic control has achieved major strategic outcomes that are recognized by the whole world. We hope the US will make proper arrangements for Chinese personnel going to the US and create favorable conditions for the resumption of personnel exchanges," Zhao said at a news briefing in Beijing.

Since suspending operations at the start of the pandemic last year, the US embassy and consulates in China "remain unable to resume routine nonimmigrant visa operations", according to the embassy.

Even if visa processing resumes, industry experts expressed concern that the huge backlog of applications will likely cause significant delays.

"Even if schools/universities decide to fully return to on-campus learning this fall, most Chinese students will not be able to obtain their visas on time" to travel to the US, said Andrew Hang Chen, who initiated an online petition to the US State Department to alert it to what he called "the Chinese student visa crisis".

"Without F-1 visa processing for Chinese students, the disappearance of Chinese students on American campuses in the 2021-22 academic year will be an imminent crisis," said Chen, vice-chair of NAFSA's China Member Interest Group in the petition.

NAFSA, founded as the National Association for Foreign Student Advisers, is now the Association of International Educators.

"The paying consumers of American international education will likely choose other, more welcoming destination countries, such as the UK and Canada," Chen added.

The pandemic and travel restrictions have greatly affected international enrollment at US colleges and universities, as hundreds of thousands of students were stranded overseas, unable to secure visas or to travel.

"Because of the halt in travel, many US higher education institutions across the country have reported that they have reduced services, furloughed employees and eliminated positions," said Esther Brimmer, CEO of NAFSA, in an April 23 letter to Acting Assistant Secretary of State Ian Brownlee, asking the Biden administration to ease travel restrictions on students.

More than 1 million international students studying at US colleges and universities contributed $41 billion and supported more than 458,000 US jobs during the 2018-19 academic year, according to a report by NAFSA.

The organization estimates that the continued decline in new international student enrollment since fall 2016 has cost the US economy $11.8 billion and more than 65,000 jobs.

Chinese students account for one-third of all international students enrolled at US colleges and universities, making China the leading source of international students in the US education market.

The vast majority of Chinese students were self-funded, each paying tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees.

"Asians now account for 21 percent of the scientist and engineering employment in the US, yet they only constitute 6 percent of the population in the US," said Denis Simon, a professor of China business and technology at Duke University.

"International students are not taking the place of domestic students in the US. They're not taking up their seats or their money. In fact, they're net value-added to the American education system," he said.

"If we want to solve our problems and keep innovating, if we do not continue to allow the doors to open to immigrants ... we're going to find ourselves in deep trouble."

Mo Jingxi in Beijing contributed to this story.