By admin 
Several California universities have paused international students’ applications to pursue off-campus internships after the federal government issued guidance last month urging enhanced scrutiny of these work authorizations.
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security in August narrowed the scope of employment that international students can pursue during their programs and directed schools to ensure compliance.
It’s the most recent in a series of policy changes enacted by the Trump administration to restrict visas and the length of stay for foreign students — moves that experts warn will likely drive down enrollment of these student groups nationwide. In California, international students represent about 7% of the state’s total four-year college and university enrollment and contribute not just diverse perspectives and critical skills but also higher tuition to the state’s postsecondary institutions, the Public Policy Institute of California noted.
As part of the new guidance message, DHS threatened universities with legal consequences — including the revocation of their permission to enroll international students.
“This is the first step towards eliminating CPT (internships for foreign students) and making it so difficult that students simply will not come to the United States,” said Charles Kuck, a prominent Atlanta-based immigration attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “That is the plan of this administration.”
DHS said it had observed a rise in authorizations for curricular practical training that do not meet regulatory requirements. As a result, it would be increasing its scrutiny of those approvals, it said.
According to immigration policy, CPT is employment directly related to an international student’s major area of study that is undertaken part-time or full-time during the program. It must be an integral part of an established curriculum, the policy says. Its aim is to provide work experience and add to the skills students learn in the classroom.
Higher education institutions across the nation have long interpreted “integral” to mean internships that are required to obtain certain degrees as well as practical training that is not required by a program but counts towards course credit and is considered vital by an academic advisor. Now, the federal government has explicitly invalidated the latter.
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DHS said CPT should only be authorized for students in programs that would be impossible to complete without an internship and which require professional experience for all those enrolled, irrespective of whether they are domestic or international. If universities and their representatives authorize such work for international students when it is “not required” and use it to “create work opportunities rather than academic studies,” they could be subject to administrative or legal consequences, the message said. Still, it acknowledged that the responsibility of defining what is and is not required to complete a degree finally rests with individual institutions and not the federal government.
How are California schools responding?
Most University of California campuses have temporarily stopped processing international students’ applications for at least “course credit” or elective CPT, according to their websites. This includes UC Berkeley, UC Davis and UC Irvine. UCLA too, according to student newspaper The Daily Bruin, has paused some international students’ work authorizations. UC Merced and UC San Diego, meanwhile, have paused all CPT requests for now.
In messages to students, these UC campuses said they believed this action was in the best interests of the students and universities as they consulted with the UC president’s office and legal counsel to develop new systems that align with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) requirements.
At least one campus, that’s UC Berkeley, said it was unlikely that it would process course credit CPT applications in the near future. The campus — along with Davis and Irvine — is still processing CPT applications for degrees that require internships. At Berkeley, that includes programs like masters’ degrees in business administration and public policy.
Within the California State University system, seven of 22 campuses announced on their websites that they have temporarily paused CPT applications. This includes Cal State East Bay, Cal State LA, CSU Long Beach, San Diego State, San Francisco State, CSU San Marcos and Sonoma State. Like with the UC system, some of them have paused applications only for course credit CPT while others have temporarily stopped processing all CPT requests. Sonoma State said it was waiting for further guidance from the Chancellor’s Office, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the systemwide reaction to the federal message.
Private universities too are changing their systems in response to the new federal guidance. The University of Southern California has not just paused its processing of elective CPT applications but halted it entirely on Aug. 24. Authorizations issued prior to that date, however, will not be rescinded, it said.
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