Student Union
US Universities Watching for Coronavirus
At Arizona State University, which hosts more than 13,300 international students, people are wearing face masks and petitioning the school to cancel classes after the coronavirus was diagnosed in someone at the university who had recently returned from China.
“From stores selling out of surgical masks to students calling for class cancellations, the 2019 novel coronavirus has taken ASU by storm since Sunday’s announcement that a member of the community was infected with the viral illness,” wrote the student newspaper, The State Press.
While a planeload of Americans flown from China to the U.S. is being held at a California airbase for three days before they will be allowed to proceed into the country — and advised to stay for 14 to ensure they are not carrying the virus — international students have been flocking back to U.S. universities for the past two weeks with no barrier to entry.
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Students on campuses where the virus is rumored or suspected to be present have donned surgical masks and asked officials to cancel classes, including Arizona State University. Many U.S. universities are holding their breath, monitoring students who have returned after the winter break.
At Miami University in Ohio, health officials await the results of two possible cases of the coronavirus involving students returning from China, according to the Butler County Department of Health and the university. At Texas A&M, a student who presented with flulike symptoms tested negative for coronavirus.
Meanwhile, some schools, such as ASU, have banned travel to China, where universities have robust exchange programs and satellite campuses.
At New York University, the university with the largest population of international students — nearly 20,000 — in the largest city in the country, spokesman John Beckman said staff are vigilant.
NYU’s statement was similar to those of other universities with large international student populations contacted by VOA. Many universities are issuing advisories for students to seek help at the campus health center when they experience symptoms, according to email and phone calls VOA made to 10 universities for their response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“We have communicated directly with students who were from regions where travel restrictions are in effect to let us know if they are unable to return to school. We are reaching out to faculty who, our records reflect, have students in their classes who may be affected by the travel restrictions, and giving them guidance and options about how they can enable the students who may be stuck in China to participate in the class,” NYU spokesman John Beckman said.
“Our health center staff has been in frequent direct contact with state and local health departments, and has been in touch with other universities’ health operations, as well as following guidance from the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) CDC and the (World Health Organization) WHO. In line with that guidance, we have directly communicated with all the students from affected areas, advising them about the symptoms of the illness, and instructing them to go to the Health Center if they are demonstrating the symptoms,” he said. “This is a time of year in which a lot of students present with respiratory illnesses, which the staff is trained and prepared to handle, so medical staff in our health center will have a heightened sensitivity to travel histories. The head of our health center also sent out a universitywide email about the virus last week, and we’ve established a page with information about the virus.”
No federal guidelines
The U.S. has no official policy or guidance for U.S. universities on how to handle international students who may be returning from points around the globe, including China, to schools in the U.S., according to a CDC spokesperson. There are more than 1 million international students in the country, including nearly 370,000 Chinese students, according to the Institute of International Education.
The CDC “is closely monitoring an outbreak of respiratory illness caused by a novel (new) coronavirus first identified in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China,” according to its website.
The WHO is expected to meet Thursday to decide if the coronavirus outbreak is a global health emergency.
And the University of Southampton in the U.K. convened an emergency study of the coronavirus outbreak, determining, “The spread of the new coronavirus is a fast-moving situation and we are closely monitoring the epidemic in order to provide further up-to-date analysis on the likely spread, including the effectiveness of the transport lockdown in Chinese cities and transmission by people returning from the Lunar New Year holiday, which has been extended to 2 February.”
Two Bangladesh students who are in lockdown in Wuhan interviewed by VOA said while they were very scared, they did not want to leave in case they were infected with the coronavirus.
“It’s better for me to stay in Wuhan,” said Jannatun Nahar, who is studying at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. “All the good doctors are here, military doctors are here.
“If I go back, these [viruses] can be in your body and can stay in an incubation period for 14 days. In 14 days, I will already be contaminated. I think it’s a very big risk for me to go home now. Better for me to stay here,” Nahar said.
VOA Bangla Service contributed to this report.
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Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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