The international student bait-and-switch

This article really hit home with me. My girlfriend is an international student, so I&#x27;m all too aware of the ridiculous things these people have to deal with even in normal times. With COVID-19 and current politics, the immigration system has gone from slow to glacial, and now they&#x27;re trying to cut staff. We&#x27;ve had to worry about work authorization in the past -- i.e. that my girlfriend might not be able to get a job after college because the approval is taking so long and that she would be forced to leave the country if she couldn&#x27;t get a job within the allotted time. Right now, she can&#x27;t legally drive (!!!) because her work authorization renewal, which she applied for with ample time, hasn&#x27;t come through yet. In a couple months, we&#x27;ll be back to worrying about job loss and deportation...<p>It&#x27;s so stressful to worry about your transportation, your income &amp; career prospects, your education, your friends &amp; loved ones, and your entire life in the States being taken away because of politics that change with the whims of the current administration. My heart goes out to the people who have lost the chance to attend great universities, work at great companies, and live in the States because of this. Hurting them only comes back around to hurt us.

I too am an immigrant to the United States and it&#x27;s frustrating to read this, and not because the reasons most people might think. I came here as a child and I am reminded every day of the privilege American residency and citizenship affords me. The family that I left behind in my home country is still struggling to make ends meet, while I was, as recently as Feb. 2020, making nearly $200K per year as an attorney. I lost my job due to Covid-19, but I am optimistic that my future is bright, mostly because America is still a land of opportunity, unlike the vast majority of the world.<p>Mr. Duruk&#x27;s thought&#x27;s are frustrating to read because he assumes his privilege. He assumes he&#x27;s owed an easy and straightforward journey to citizenship, that his future as a foreign-student shouldn&#x27;t be jeopardized in the least by the political whims of the local population, as if the ravaged parts of THIS nation which screamed out and democratically elected a protectionist president do not deserve to be heard at the international&#x27;s community&#x27;s expense.<p>America isn&#x27;t perfect, no country is, but having lived here for twenty years, having experienced life in other places, and having traveled internationally, I wouldn&#x27;t chose another place as my home--and apparently neither would Mr. Duruk.<p>While I do not agree with this administration&#x27;s immigration policies, I have enough perspective to realize that immigration policy is ultimately beholden to the local population. That is what democracy entails. Nobody owes anybody anything in life, complaining as if you are owed something reeks of privilege and a sense of entitlement.

This ruling on international student is just plain cruel. I know how much hard work I had to put in to secure an F1 visa, and then had to invest in lease, buying a car etc. with very meager means. To come in the middle of that and tell everyone pack up and leave is just straight up evil. The next strategy will be deny visas for anyone re-applying for F-1, drastically reducing student numbers

Soft power was always crucial to US success. US as a cultural juggernaut in the 20th century was a key reason the US won the Cold War - not hard power. Projecting “liberal values” out to the world was part of it.<p>Since the Iraq war, the emperor has increasingly had no clothes. Instead of moral progress to realize those ideal, things have increasingly devolved and the bottom keeps dropping out...<p>I have optimism that even now the majority of Americans hold to some ideals to aspire to, and that eventually given a generation, things can change. But I won’t hold my breath!

as, a former international student in the us. I wouldn&#x27;t recommend, anyone coming here to be an undergrad f1 student. PHD yes, everything else no. You can go to various countries and be better. though other countries might be expensive. I went to a state school, which by large was affordable. and just come to the us for things like Spring break or vacation i.e experience american life.

So glad I finished my studies before the pandemic... But, yes, universities do treat international students as if they are made of money.

I guess I just don&#x27;t believe the notion that ICE made this decision to try and force universities to reopen. It just makes so little sense. I understand that this administration&#x27;s is interested in returning to normalcy, but surely university&#x27;s aren&#x27;t high on their priority list?<p>Meanwhile, we have now four years of evidence that at every moment where they can reduce the number of illegal immigrants to the US, they make that decision. Whether it&#x27;s banning people based on their religion or kicking out people who have been legally living here for decades as refugees. It just makes far more sense that the administration&#x27;s real goal here is to reduce the number of foreign students, not to force universities to reopen. The director of homeland security just doesn&#x27;t want to admit it.

Seems like schools could just create:<p>“International Students 223: In Person Cultural Learning.”<p>And make all assessment digital. In practice it is an in person lab, but one nobody must show up for.

Thanks for writing that.<p>&gt; all I can feel sometimes is that I’ve bet on the wrong horse<p>This is a very American experience, where there is no safety net for being wrong if you run out of money on the bet, but we do have convenient bankruptcy laws when you run out of other people&#x27;s money on top of that.<p>&gt; The whole point of moving to the developed world is to not have to deal with developing world problems<p>The only unique thing about America is having the resources to do better, it just doesn&#x27;t. so I am pretty thrilled that people are being forced to reconcile the difference between Hollywood propaganda and real life.<p>Most other major economic unions were forced to become more inclusive and empathic, by invasion and reeducation. The US has never been forced to reconcile any part of its culture, it is populated by people with incompatible extremes of ideologies wherever they came from, and it promotes those extremes for temporary unilateral control of US resources.<p>Your writing was very insightful, I hope this helps you patch your understanding of what America is and gives you a more objective way to use it as a tool.

Feels like a fairly quick chat with an American could have dispelled some of the overly-positive ideas about the US they claim to have had.

The US is not a dependable partner anymore. Not on the international political stage nor on the personal stage.

&gt; International students, however, by and large, pay the full ride in most schools in undergrad and in master’s programs. Very few schools offer any scholarship to international students, and of those that do, the terms are often not as comparable.<p>In my experience this is almost completely false. They do have to pay out-of-state tuition to public schools, and they generally aren&#x27;t eligible for taxpayer-funded need-based aid. But we don&#x27;t blink at giving scholarships to international applicants just as often as domestic. Often international students dominate the applications to master&#x27;s programs, and get all the scholarships too.

This too shall pass. Ask the people that had the misfortune of being in foreign student status on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

as an intl student, most of what is written is so true.

They lose their immigration status? I thought they can return once their schools reopen?

&gt; <i>Most fundamentally, I’ve always thought that the United States had a more profound respect for human dignity.</i><p>It is always surprising to me that the US has been able to mostly maintain this image all while operating a global network of torture prisons and, now, domestic concentration camps for both adults and children, and while imprisoning 20x+ of its ethnic minorities, per capita, compared to China (which has, by various accounts, 1M+ in labor camps).<p>Do people not generally know what conditions inside US prisons are like? Are the torture facilities not common knowledge?<p>How is this level of spin even possible?

Seems to me that the international student business is about selling a path to American citizenship.<p>How expensive can it get before the millions of students stop coming? How bad can the education be? How bad can the politics be?<p>I think the answer is a lot worse. USA is still attractive to billions of people on the planet.

I have a feeling schools will figure out a straightforward loophole out of this. I&#x27;m also thinking that the USCIS&#x2F;DHS might not have the ability&#x2F;will&#x2F;power to fully enforce something like this.

&gt; The whole point of moving to the developed world is to not have to deal with developing world problems.<p>Tell that to the people living in Appalachia or on skid row in LA.<p>Like most third-world countries, the US is a fine place to live, if you have money and&#x2F;or access to power. But if you&#x27;re not in that category, don&#x27;t expect anything from public institutions.

What will this do to American competitiveness in the global race for talent? Most developed countries are doing a lot to attract and retain them.<p>Talented people have good memories. They will remember this and tell their friends and people who go to them for advice for years to come.<p>“Trump’s freeze on new visas could threaten US dominance in AI<p>The president’s executive order to temporarily suspend H-1B visas exacerbates the US’s precarious position in the global competition for AI talent.“<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.technologyreview.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;1004520&#x2F;trump-executive-order-h1b-visa-threatens-us-ai&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.technologyreview.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;06&#x2F;26&#x2F;1004520&#x2F;trump-ex...</a>

This whole piece reads wrong for me.<p>The United States has been disenfranchising its own citizens for decades particulary economically.<p>Students from around the world should be allowed to stay but this world view is so foreign, pun not intended, from my perspective as a mixed man from a broken background.

Hoping that some colleges pull a fast one, like having one in-person lecture a week that are widely known to be shams and not for actual attendance, perhaps a lecture about a Simpsons episode, to maintain the “in-person” eligibility while having nobody attend, and then litigate the issue in court when the government tries to call them on it.

Shouldn&#x27;t International Students have to &quot;pay a full ride&quot;? I mean most of the stipulations with grants are intended to keep the knowledge and donations within the community. That seems entitled and very &quot;woe is me&quot; to me.

Australia: we want more international students. you are worth $16b+ to us annually. (some estimates go to $30b of on-value)<p>Also Australia: Oh, covid: no money for you, indigent peons!<p>Basically, if you cannot afford to eat, as a displaced international student its begging, or starving. No help.<p>Truly amazing lack of insight into future study outcomes here.<p>We used to have a strategy called &quot;the colombo plan&quot; which was free tertiary education on a requirement to <i>go back home</i> and this built links into emerging economies which liked us.<p>Now, our strategy is to milk international students dry, keep the ones who can survive exclusionist immigration policy, and screw everyone over if the risk-side tanks. Great plan!

I’ll be the devil’s advocate here. US as a country of choice for education, work and life is unbeatable. The author himself is looking forward to getting the citizenship soon. US also has a lot of structural issues, as any country and any structure of government does. US educational institutions and the teaching will still hold appeal and after Covid settles down, it’ll still continue to attract international students. While international students pay full price, international students also receive scholarships and the student loan crisis of (mostly) American students shows that American students are not as subsidized as the author claims. Economy is interlinked - international students end up in tech sector jobs, earn exorbitant sums (PM in a FANG company is earning $400K while average American wage is closer to $50K), possibly joining social media businesses (morally challenged business models) and further straining the social fabric in the US. This is my conjecture, based on my experience. I’m an international student and studied in a premier US university and have all my friends working mostly in SF and NYC. Of late, I’m starting to judge things on the basis of what heals US and avoid picking things in isolation. In summary, I see that the immigration rules have been harshly implemented, but again, it’s covid and I’m not sure what a measured response is anymore. US is well within its right to control immigration as it feels like, internationals like US because there is something about US that’s hard to unpack, but as a whole, something to cherish and love. In my opinion, the author is fair to call out the immigration rule implementation, everything else feels like a rant and I have a hard time buying into the criticism.