BREAKING NEWS …. SEVP Guidance for F-1 Students

As schools start to reimagine academic life during the continue threat of COVID and develop contingency plans for the fall, SEVP announced on July 6, 2020 vague guidance on the flexibility in remote learning, hybrid remote options, eligibility for OPT for students returning from time abroad, permission to file for OPT from abroad, etc.  The July 6 guidance now supersedes SEVP’s current COVID-19 guidance located at ICE.gov/Coronavirus. However, SEVP’s current COVID-19 guidance will remain in effect through the end of a school’s summer semester.

The July guidance returns to the policy that F-1 students in the US are not permitted to take all online courses, despite the fact that many universities and colleges in evaluating the safest situation for their students, staff and communities have turned to online courses for the Fall in response to the ongoing pandemic.  The result is that students enrolled in online only courses will not be permitted to remain in the US.

SEVP subsequently released updated guidance through FAQs the following day, which includes some contradicting information on the guidance.

The new guidance has already been challenged in the courts.  The following is a link to the complaint by Harvard University and MIT filed in Federal district court challenging the July guidance and which includes a request for an injunction against SEVP’s July guidance: http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708-Harvard-MIT-Complaint-Injunctive-Relief.pdf

Given the rapidly evolving situation regarding the SEVP guidance and ongoing litigation, Iandoli Desai & Cronin P.C. will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates. In the meantime the following FAQ’s is a helpful tool for the most updated information:  https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/sevisFall2020_FAQ.pdf