Jamaican triple jump champion Jordan Scott is breathing a sigh of relief after his University of Southern California (USC) reversed a decision to have all its classes in the upcoming semester online, a situation that would result in all international students being forced to leave the United States according to a new law by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“It is definitely a feeling of relief knowing that my school has opted to reverse it’s decision to go strictly online, to go hybrid to facilitate international students,” Scott told the Jamaica Observer last week.

He added: “At first I was a bit worried with the decision because for one, it was unprovoked and sudden and I guess there was a bit of uncertainty around if I would be able to continue my degree in the US.”

The announcement by ICE had sent shock waves through the US college community which has an estimated one million international students enrolled, many of them like Scott and many other Jamaicans, on sports scholarships.

A release from ICE last week Monday said, “The US Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programmes that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States.

“Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programmes must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status. If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.”

This week 17 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit against the Donald Trump Administration seeking an injunction that would block the order from going into effect.

According to NBC News, “The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Massachusetts, takes aim at what the 18 attorneys general call the federal government’s ‘cruel, abrupt, and unlawful action to expel international students amidst the pandemic that has wrought death and disruption across the United States’.”

A week ago Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard had filed the first lawsuits with Harvard’s President Larry Bacow quoted to have said, “We believe that the ICE order is bad public policy, and we believe that it is illegal.”

A number of others schools including Ivy League schools Columbia, New York University and the University of California-Berkeley had responded by creating a one credit course ‘global course’ for all international students, that will be done in person, which would satisfy the ICE requirements.

USC, where Scott had transferred to from the University of Virginia earlier this year, and Ivy League school Harvard were among schools that had announced they would be giving online classes only while some schools had announced they would follow suit only after the Thanksgiving break in November.

Scott told the Observer he had his concerns about being able to return to the USA but had started to look at alternatives. “I was definitely worried but at the same time I believed that I had the facilities necessary to do online school and train here in Jamaica, if needs be.”

The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) indoors triple jump champion said, “Overall I am grateful that it has been overturned and that I will be able to go there and experience the school and their training regime there and hopefully there will be no more surprises in the future.”