Is next week going to be the week of the great “exodus” or the week of the great “change of status” for the TVU students?

After talking to many students and analyzing their concerns, we believe that most students are going to opt for leaving the Unites States voluntarily and come back possibly on a new student visa or some other kind of visas (including H4, H1Bs, etc).  Note that we are neither advising nor advocating for such an option.

In fact we would prefer that the TVU students   reinstate and/or be allowed change their status. However, there are a number of legal, economical and social issues that we cannot ignore:

1. A student waiting in the US will have to have enough money to pay for change of status, living expenses and possibly legal expenses;
2. There is no guarantee the reinstatement will work and in some parts of the country it might take around several long months to adjudicate;
3. Students will have to pay a school and if denied, might be faced with the horrible possibility of losing their hard earned money;
4. Students staying in the United States will always live in fear of having a Notice to Appear (NTA) be issued to them;
5. Students who leave voluntarily might not have any issues of applying and coming back on a fresh student visa; and
6. Students who have a possible change of status to H4 might be better served by leaving and coming back “clean”.

The above are few reasons why a student of TVU might prefer to leave the United States rather than staying and “suffering”.

While cognizant of the issues above, we still need to make sure:

1. Whether a student without a criminal charge will not be “blacklisted” by the US consulate  or port of entry and be denied entry;
2. What will happen to students who have already been issued an NTA. Unless the NTA is withdrawn or terminated, these students will still have to fight a legal battle or request for voluntary departure with the court before they can leave. Failure to do so, might trigger  a deportation in abstentia; and
3. What are the possibilities for students who have had their passports confiscated.

We will recommend you think properly before the students make the decision to leave.

Hopefully something will happen next week  to provide us some guidance and clarifications.

One positive factor that many are looking forward to is the coming of the Indian Foreign Secretary, Nirupama Rao. Indeed she  will  be in the United States on February 12^th 2011. She is meeting with her US counter-part, we hope that the two parties will actually come to terms how to deal with the TVU students.

This is one good reason why we might have to wait and see what happens before  a student makes the decision to leave the United States.

As we mentioned earlier, next week will either be the week of the “exodus” or the week of “change of status”….

Good Luck

Shah Peerally