A Message from President Botstein about New Guidelines from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
A COVID-19 Update
Dear colleagues and students,Earlier this week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new guidelines that, if enacted, could severely impact international students on campuses nationwide. We consider these guidelines to be senseless, ill-conceived, and completely at odds with Bard’s mission and its role as an international partner in higher education. As written, these guidelines intend to prohibit international students from attending US colleges providing only online courses. While this prohibition is unlikely to impact our students directly, we want to assure the entire Bard community that we will support international students currently enrolled, or considering enrollment, at the College.
We believe the announcement of these guidelines is both political, in line with this administration’s hardline stance on immigration, and punitive, serving to punish international students and the higher education institutions that welcome them. Throughout its history, Bard has embraced international students and faculty. We have created important and lasting partnerships with colleges and universities worldwide. That openness to international students and partnerships is at the core of Bard’s mission.
We are working with our representatives in Congress and our partners in higher education to stop this action and to speed the processing of student visas. We support the lawsuit filed by MIT and Harvard seeking an order barring the enforcement of these guidelines, and will work tirelessly to ensure that no international student is prevented from attending Bard.
Cordially,
Leon Botstein
President
Bard College
For more information, call 845-758-6822.