For These Indian Students, Vaccines Have Turned the American Dream Into a Nightmare

They bought their flight tickets. They’ve deposited university housing fees in the U.S. Some have even secured coveted COVID-19 vaccination jabs in India. 

But these Indian students are still in limbo.

Vaccination requirements on American campuses could upend international students’ American dreams by forcing them to “mix” vaccines. 

“There is not enough research to understand what taking two different vaccines can do to my body,” 24 year-old Sameer told VICE World News, requesting only his first name be used over concerns of a potential backlash from his dream university in Boston.

“My university health forms currently only accept Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson vaccines,” he added. 

Sameer has already taken his first dose of Covaxin, an Indian-manufactured vaccine. However, the vaccine doesn't meet the mandatory vaccine criteria of more than 400 American universities, because it is yet to be approved by the World Health Organization. 

That’s a major challenge for Sameer and other international students, who contributed $39 billion in tuition dollars to the U.S. in 2019. 

Currently, only 4.15 percent of India’s population that is vaccine eligible has received the jab. While several Indian states are holding special drives to vaccinate students bound for international universities in August, students VICE World News spoke to argue that there is still no clarity on whether they’ll be able to get both doses of a WHO-approved available vaccine like Covishield on time. 

“There is an extreme vaccine shortage in my city, and since I have just recovered from COVID-19, I am not sure if I will be able to get both doses on time,” Rishabh Sonkar, a student from the eastern Indian city of Kolkata about to start his term at New York’s Columbia University told VICE World News.

While there is not enough data to suggest that combining different vaccines is safe in the long-term, the Center for Disease Prevention and Controls recommends that people who have gotten a vaccine that wasn’t authorised by the WHO outside of the U.S., should wait at least 28 days before getting an FDA-recommended vaccine in the U.S.

Time is ticking for the hundreds of thousands of Indian students bound for America.

Every year, the U.S. has more than 200,000 students from India like Sameer and Rishabh. One in five international students in the U.S. are Indian.

But the pandemic has drastically changed the American student experience for Indian students. Many have had to defer their admission into a U.S. college for a year. And now, in addition to their vaccine woes, they face yet another obstacle: many are unable to book appointments for their student visas to the U.S.

Sameer, who is eager to start his master’s degree this August after deferring admission last year, has already resigned from his bank job as he prepared to leave for his studies. But the new set of challenges has left him in a state of anxiety. 

“There are no appointments available at the U.S. Embassy and Consulate in India, and even if they do randomly open a slot, [they do so] at odd hours of the night and it gets booked within seconds,” he said. 

The U.S. consulate and the embassy offices in India are closed and only offer emergency services to students whose classes start on or after August 1. 

However, students VICE World News spoke to said they have not managed to get an emergency appointment. 

“Consulates are not even honouring the emergency appointments, and even those of us who booked our interviews in May and April, they were cancelled by consulates,” said Sameer. 

“If I don’t get the appointment, I will lose my admission, as well as the Rs 150,000 ($2,055) I have already spent on non-refundable flight tickets and housing deposits.”

Currently, almost 7,000 Indian students are pushing for the embassy to open slots for visa appointments through an online petition. 

The U.S. embassy and consulates did not immediately respond to VICE World News. During a Facebook Live chat conducted by the U.S. Embassy on Thursday, Don Heflin, Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs, said that students could expect more appointment slots to open by Monday, June 14.

But some students fear that even these additional slots might not be enough to meet the demand. As the last date to pay their tuition fees approaches, Indian students who quit their jobs or invested their time and money to prepare for American universities face an uncertain future. 

“American universities are quick to take tuition fees from international students, but don’t want to understand the context of these students,” Sudanshu Kaushik, the executive director of the North American Association for Indian Students, a non-profit organisation that aims to make American universities more inclusive for Indians, told VICE World News. 

“They haven’t made a centralised policy or considered the impact of their policies on international students who may be facing vaccine disparities or other administrative issues in their countries.”

Despite it all, some students like Sonkar, who have come so close to their American dream, remain hopeful that both their vaccine and visa will make it in time.

“With the vaccine norms changing to 28 days and the embassy promising thousands of the visa slots opening for us to book, I think I will be good to go.”

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