PHOENIX (AP) — International students worried about a new immigration policy that could potentially cost them their visas say they feel stuck between being unnecessarily exposed during the coronavirus pandemic and being able to finish their studies in America.

Students from countries as diverse as India, China and Brazil told The Associated Press they are scrambling to devise plans after federal immigration authorities notified colleges this week that international students must leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools operate entirely online this fall.

Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology filed a lawsuit this week to block the decision, and now California has become the first state to seek an injunction against enforcing the new visa policy.

“Shame on the Trump Administration for risking not only the education opportunities for students who earned the chance to go to college, but now their health and well-being as well,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Thursday.

Some said they may return home, or move to nearby Canada.

“I’m generating research, I’m doing work in a great economy,” said Batuhan Mekiker, a Ph.D. student from Turkey studying computer science at Montana State University in Bozeman. He’s in the third year of a five-year program.

”If I go to Turkey, I would not have that,” he said. “I would like to be somewhere where my talent is appreciated.”

Mathias, a Seattle-based student who spoke on condition his last name not be used for fear of losing his immigration status, said he is set to sell his car, break his lease, and get his cat Louis permission to fly back to his home in Paris in the next two weeks.

“Everyone’s very worried,” he said. “We have our whole lives here.”

Many American universities have come to depend on the revenue from more than 1 million international students, who typically pay higher tuition. President Donald Trump has insisted they return to in-person instruction as soon as possible, alleging that schools are being kept closed to harm the economy and make him look bad.

The guidance was released the same day Harvard announced it would keep all undergraduate classes online this fall. Harvard said the new Trump directive would prevent many of its 5,000 international students from remaining in the U.S.

The University of Southern California sent a letter to students and faculty, saying it is “deeply troubled” and that the “the policy could negatively impact countless international students.”

Like other universities, USC said it was pushing back and working to ensure students’ academic careers aren’t harmed, while exploring ways for students to safely study in person if they wish.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the directive could inflict “significant harm” on colleges, students, the business community and the economy.

A U.S. State Department press release said the policy “provides greater flexibility for non-immigrant students to continue their education in the United States, while also allowing for proper social distancing on open and operating campuses.”

A day after Harvard sued, the university notified the court that immigration authorities appear to be already enforcing the policy. A lawyer for Harvard urged the judge to suspend the rule, saying that a first-year student from Belarus was turned away from his flight at a Minsk airport. There is another hearing Friday.

“This is very dangerous and cruel,” said Jessie Peng, a Chinese graduate student in analytics at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology.

“We have nowhere to go,” said Peng, 27. “Either risk our lives and go to school or we risk our lives flying back to China.”

Jasdeep Mandia, a doctoral candidate from India studying economics at Arizona State University, said he has breathing problems that could worsen if he gets sick from COVID-19.

Mandia, 35, originally planned to conduct all his fall studies online. He says the Trump directive puts the shaky standing of international students on display.

“It has never been a level playing field,” he said. “But this makes it more apparent.”

At Indiana University, American scholar Dakota Murray wrote in the school newspaper about his uncertainty over how the guidance would affect him and his wife, a fellow doctoral candidate who is from South Korea.

Murray, 27, said he and his wife had discussed going to live in South Korea or maybe Canada, where she has relatives. He spoke on condition that his wife’s name not be used because she is trying to obtain a green card that will let her work and reside in the U.S. after she finishes her studies.

Vanderbilt University student Safa Shahzad went home to Manchester, England, for a visit in March but got stuck there when the U.S. imposed travel restrictions to slow the spread of the virus.

Still in England, the 19-year-old, who is double majoring in politics and computer science, completed her freshman year from afar after the university transitioned online.

Although Vanderbilt has said courses will be a hybrid of online and in person this fall, Shahzad cannot travel to the U.S. until the Trump administration lifts the travel restrictions.

“I’m just kind of waiting,” she said.

Computer science student Vivian Degasperi, 23, from Brazil, said the new guidelines “are going to make my life harder” at Erie Community College in Buffalo, New York.

Degasperi said the college has announced that almost all classes will be taught remotely, and is examining how to keep international students from losing their visa status.

Because she lives near the northern U.S. border, Degasperi said she would consider moving to Canada.

“My family is worried,” she said. “Everyone is calling me all the time.”

Natalia Afonso, a Brooklyn College student, also from Brazil, said she hopes the school will adopt a hybrid model of remote and in-person classes — but she fears riding the subway to campus could increase her chances of catching the virus.

“I don’t see myself moving back to Brazil at this point,” said the 27-year-old, who is studying education and just finished her first semester. “It’s very unfair.”

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Naishadham reported from Atlanta and Powell from Washington. AP writers Collin Binkley in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Federal officials were so worried Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime confidant Ghislaine Maxwell might take her own life after her arrest that they took away her clothes and bedsheets and made her wear paper attire while in custody, an official familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

The steps to ensure Maxwell’s safety while she’s locked up at a federal jail in New York City extend far beyond the measures federal officials took when they first arrested her in New Hampshire last week.

The Justice Department has added extra security precautions and placed federal officials outside the Bureau of Prisons in charge of ensuring there is adequate protection for Maxwell. That’s to help prevent other inmates from harming her and to stop her from harming herself, the official said.

The concern comes in part because Epstein, 66, killed himself in a federal jail in Manhattan last summer while in custody on sex trafficking charges, spawning conspiracy theories over his death despite a medical examiner ruling it a suicide. The sprawling case against him ensnared British royalty and American elite who attended parties at his mansions. Whispers over who knew what and when about Epstein even reached the White House, after video surfaced of President Donald Trump and the financier chatting at a Mar-a-Lago party in 1992.

The case appeared dormant until Maxwell was arrested last Thursday on charges she helped lure at least three girls — one as young as 14 — to be sexually abused by Epstein, who was accused of victimizing dozens of girls and women over many years.

Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was the former girlfriend and longtime close associate of Epstein. She is accused of facilitating his crimes and even joining him in sexually abusing the girls, according to the indictment against her. Several Epstein victims have described Maxwell as his chief enabler, recruiting and grooming girls for abuse. She has denied wrongdoing and called claims against her “absolute rubbish.”

Maxwell was arrested by a team of federal agents last week at a $1 million estate she had purchased in New Hampshire. The investigators had been keeping an eye on Maxwell and knew she had been hiding out in various locations in New England.

She had switched her email address, ordered packages under someone else’s name and registered at least one new phone number under an alias “G Max,” prosecutors have said.

When the agents swooped in to arrest her, they weren’t sure that she was even at the home, the official said. Some investigators believed she may have already fled the United States to avoid prosecution, the official added.

Maxwell was not sent to the same jail. Rather, she was taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, just over the Brooklyn Bridge from where Epstein was held.

The other protocols put in place for Maxwell’s confinement include ensuring that she has a roommate in her cell, that she is monitored and that someone is always with her while she’s behind bars, the official said.

The official could not discuss the ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The Bureau of Prisons has been the subject of intense scrutiny since Epstein’s death, with staff shakeups and leadership changes. Attorney General William Barr said his death was the result of the “perfect storm of screw ups.”

The Bureau of Prisons been plagued for years by serious misconduct, violence and staffing shortages so severe that guards often work overtime day after day or are forced to work mandatory double shifts. It has also struggled recently with an exploding number of coronavirus cases in prisons across the U.S.