May 14, 2021
The Biden Administration has revoked a Trump rule and will allow foreign students from several countries including Iran to enter the United States for the fall semester.
It isn’t clear that this will immediately benefit Iranian students, however, as it leaves them only about four months to get all their paperwork in order. That is a short time for Iranians since there is no US consulate in Iran, and Iranians must travel to a neighboring country, usually Turkey, the UAE or one in the Caucasus, to obtain a visa. But it will benefit Iranians seeking to enter a US college for the next spring semester.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs in the US Department of State announced April 26 that foreign nationals from Iran, China, Brazil and South Africa will be allowed to enter the United States, under exemptions from previous travel bans implemented as a result of COVID-19.
Students with proper visas and negative COVID-19 tests will be allowed to enter the country if their academic program begins on August 1 or later. The Biden Administration will not require proof of vaccination, although many colleges are requiring that.
The students will be permitted to enter the United States through what’s called a “National Interest Exception,” which signifies that an individual’s entry into the United States is in the best interest of the US. The Trump Administration previously made similar exemptions for students from Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The new change means the Biden Administration actively wants to recruit Iranian students to attend US colleges.
International enrollment in US colleges dropped last fall, as hundreds of thousands of students were unable to secure proper documentation to enter the United States for classes, The Wall Street Journal reported. The number of students on F-1 or M-1 visas, which include international students at colleges, vocational programs, and K-12 schools, fell by 18 percent to 1.25 million.
Chinese students account for nearly one-third of all international students enrolled at US schools. Brazil sends the ninth largest number of international students to the United States and Iran is No. 13 in sending students to the United States—a large number considering that the Islamic Republic grants no state scholarships to students going to the US.
US consulates suspended visa operations in March 2020 but have slowly re-opened over much of the world in recent months. But under the Trump Administration, visa applicants had to start from scratch even if they had made it through much of the process before visa-issuance stopped.
The Biden Administration has now changed that practice. Visa applicants will pick up where they left off.
