Well, I can give one. These students fully expected to attend in-person classes, paid for them in full, paid to get to America and get housing for that purpose, will attend in person again as soon as it is possible.
Why can't they go home for one semester?
1) It's expensive. Flight home, rent for a US apartment they no longer occupy, potential rent for a new apartment at home, flight back here next semester. Where is a student supposed to get $5000+ to deal with this?
2) They need good internet access (and a laptop) wherever they're going. Not guaranteed, and not something the university can easily provide.
3) Timezones. Many classes are synchronous and discussion-based. Not only do you need internet good enough to support video calls, but you need to be awake at the same time as 15 other people in however many timezones.
4) It might be illegal. What if you're from China or Iran and your school uses G Suite for Education? Or they use Zoom, which is banned in 6 countries. Participating in your classes would be illegal. Can the university switch their entire infrastructure to a new platform in a couple months to support a few students for one semester for arbitrary reasons?
5) It might be unsafe. Not all students have a safe and stable place to go.
6) It achieves nothing. Literally no benefit for anyone. If you expect these students to come back in a semester or two, there is no point.
I am not sure if many people are aware of this fact but even flying can be quite difficult right now: if for instance you need to go back to Argentina it can take literally months until you are able to successfully book a flight (and this it with some help of the local embassy), and they all depart from Miami so you also have to figure out how to get there first. After that, once you get to Buenos Aires, you have to quarantine for two weeks in a specially designated hotel room. A good friend of mine passed through all this and it was pretty stressful.
Also, it might not be actually possible -- or at least be quite risky for the student. Whenever you enter the US, border agents have almost unlimited authority as to whether you are allowed in, especially as a student. Speaking as someone who's spent years going through this process, every time you have to enter the states, even if all your paperwork is in order and there are zero rational reasons for you to be denied entry, you're still worried about it. Some border agents are friendly and let you through quickly, and some grill you like you're trying to forcefully invade their country. I had a friend (who was on a work visa, not even a student one) who taught English as a Second Language at a US high school, who was told by a border agent that she's lucky he's letting her through this time, because they shouldn't allow foreigners to teach English at American schools.
That's not to even mention that when you're on an F-1 student visa, you can legally renew it while remaining in the US even while the visa stamp in your passport has already expired. But once you leave the US, you have to have a valid visa stamp in your passport in order to reenter, even if you already have a valid F-1 visa document approved and signed by all the right people. This means that, in your home country, you'll need to make an appointment, spend hours lining up at the US embassy (if they're even open due to COVID), then go through the interview process (which you have to repeat every single time you renew your passport visa stamp) in order to get that stamp reissued.
Once, after already having spent years in the US on a student visa, I was actually turned back during that interview because the particular consular officer on duty that day decided that I needed to provide a detailed printed transcript of my American high school experience. I had to leave the interview, schedule a second appointment, and have the printed transcript ready at that time. All of this is to say that not only would requiring students to go through this process simply because their universities aren't offering physical classes during COVID will not only cause intense stress, but also will probably result in some students not making it back into the country for arbitrary reasons.
- Lost reputation (if there's any left) among embassies that will have to work to repatriate these students for no reason.
- Lost business at supermarkets, bookstores, cafes, whatever else.
- Many students are probably just going to transfer to a college that's holding in-person classes rather than deal with this, putting them in danger and disrupting their education.
- Lost societal contributions from future college graduates who may no longer want to live and work in this country.
- Massive waste of government resources as ICE agents try to deport people to countries that aren't accepting flights from America.
- Waste of everyone's resources as the government and universities work through this inevitable court case.
- Loss of future international students who are now seeing an example of how arbitrary and capricious the US government can be that hits a little too close to home.
- Endangering the lives of faculty and students and neighborhoods of every college that is now forced to hold in-person classes because they can't afford to sue the United States government and don't expect this lawsuit to succeed.
- Waste of fossil fuels for completely pointless international flights.
The justification is that it was already decided that, for whatever reason(s), there was a benefit to allow these students to study in the US. They were given a spot at a university that could have gone to someone else, and resources have been expended on getting them through the process toward graduation.
If we create obstacles or burdens that stand in the way of completing that education, it serves to jeopardize the returns on the investment we've made.
If it was in the US's best interests to let them start, it's in the US's best interests to give them best odds of finishing. Let them choose whether or not to return to their home country as best fits their individual situation.
