The Colorado Association for Bilingual Education fully supports International Students and we strongly oppose the recent guidance released by ICE that forces unreasonable choices by students and institutions. It is neither just nor justified to engage in such draconian actions, especially during a worldwide crisis. CO-CABE urges the Student and Exchange Visitor Program to revise their guidance to allow all international students to remain in the country regardless of the delivery of online courses by their institutions.

On Monday, July 6, 2020, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that International Students in the United States whose schools have ruled for online-only classes in the Fall 2020 semester must leave the United States or face immigration consequences.

This is counterproductive for the following reasons:

• International students contribute ~$41 billion dollars to the US economy every year.
• US universities and research programs depend on revenue from international students to survive.
• US universities may be compelled to prematurely open in-person instruction and risk virus transmission. 
• International students foster cultural and linguistic diversity.

Please sign the petition to allow F-1 students to stay in the US through the fall semester if instruction is online due to the pandemic.