Washington DC: As US universities have shut their campuses and asked the students to vacate their hostels, many Indian students have been left in the lurch and are unable to make alternate arrangements. This has prompted the Embassy of India in Washington DC to take up this matter with their counterparts in the State department.
Indians constitute the second largest student group in the US with over 2,00,000 students enrolled in various universities, mostly in courses related to medicine and other allied science subjects.
Due to the ongoing crisis over the deadly Coronavirus, over 300 top American universities have shut their campuses down, asked students to vacate their hostels and conducting classes through the online medium.
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The US issues the student visa to students and demand the physical presence of them in the classes for the visa validity to continue.
The Embassy and the consulates in New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Atlanta are in touch with their counterparts in the State Department and the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to sort this issue out.
“The US government has indicated that it is closely monitoring the implications that this evolving situation may have for international students,” the Embassy of India in Washington DC said in a revised advisory issued for Indian students here.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Program also announced that students can be active on the group and it will continue providing guidance online till the crisis abates.
Authorities have also said that the students need to be active on the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) in the active status, so long as classes don’t resume for their visa status to remain active.
In view of the travel restrictions, the Embassy also reiterated that visitors will be quarantined for a period of 14 days upon their arrival in India.