An international student said the Trump administration rescinding its deportation threat is a relief, but the whiplash is unsettling

• US Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on July 6 that international students who were taking courses entirely online would not be allowed to remain in the US.
• The new policy was met with immediate backlash as 17 states and Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit to block the motion while Harvard and MIT led a similar suit that quickly garnered the support of 200 more universities.
• But in a Tuesday hearing, President Donald Trump's administration rescinded the directive.
• An international student told Insider that while she is happy about the rollback, she is still unsettled by the inconsistency of the Trump administration on potentially life-altering issues for students like her.

Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced a new policy that would forbid international students to remain in the United States if their schools are "operating entirely online."

The initial announcement was met with widespread backlash. Seventeen states and Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit representing more than 370,000 international students at 1,100 colleges, Insider previously reported. Harvard and MIT brought a separate lawsuit over the new guidelines, earning the support of 200 more colleges across the country.

After days of criticism, the administration rescinded that order in a hearing for one of the lawsuits on Tuesday.

Despite the relief, an international student who was at risk of being deported under the order told Insider the back-and-forth over the decision was a concerning indicator of the administration's stance on such policies.

Gabriella de Lorenzo, an international student from Brazil, came to New York two years ago to study graphic design. She previously told Insider that the policy felt like a "slap on the face," and she feared that ICE's initial decision would have jeopardized her academic progress and her access to a support system for dealing with mental illness.

After the administration rescinded the order, de Lorenzo told Insider she was "literally jumping up and down."

While she is excited to be able to pursue her fall semester, de Lorenzo said the administration's inconsistency in policies for international students has left her feeling unsettled.

"It's still unstable," de Lorenzo said. "They announced something that could literally change your life for God knows how long and decided to rescind it."

She isn't the only international student discouraged by the administration's policies. Others previously told Insider that the Trump administration's track record of anti-immigration moves had changed their "idealized vision" of the US.

Business Insider's Taylor Borden previously reported that the National Foundation for American Policy projected new international student enrollment at US universities could decline this year by up to 98%, which would be the lowest since World War II.

Read more:

• International students are losing their 'idealized vision' of the US and weighing options to leave the country if Trump wins in November
• The ICE policy that would expel international students taking online classes is being rolled back
• Colleges are scrambling to figure out how to keep international students in the US as ICE threatens to deport them
• Harvard is suing ICE for threatening to link remote learning to deportation, right as the school announced its remote reopening plan