Trump's bright idea of kicking out foreign students unless unis resume in-person classes stuns tech, science world
- Reference: 1594168178
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/08/us_student_visas/
- Source link:
The new policy, announced on Monday by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), states that “students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States.” The policy will likely affect hundreds of thousands of students.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many academic institutions have, for health reasons, decided against providing in-person tuition when terms restart in September. Since the virus outbreak took hold, students already enrolled in classes at US universities have been continuing their studies through online classes, and have been permitted to stay in the country under F-1 and M-1 visas. That will now change, according to ICE.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses... but not your H-1B geeks, L-1 staffers nor J-1 students [1]READ MORE
“The US Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will US Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States,” the agency warned.
What is most striking, however, is that the policy will apply to students in the middle of their courses. “Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status or potentially face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings,” the policy [2]stated [PDF].
So if you're a foreign student in America at a college that has gone online-only for health reasons, you now have to go home, still paying college fees, and put up with any timezone differences between you and your classmates and teachers. That's going to make the US rather unpopular with the next generation of technical learners, or push American universities into possibly unsafe decisions with regards to holding in-person lectures and tutelage.
The decision has provoked anger across multiple communities and professions. “New ICE policy regarding F-1 visa international students is horrible and will hurt the US, students, and universities,” [3]said Andrew Ng, the former head of Google’s artificial intelligence arm, ex-chief scientist at Baidu, and today a Stanford faculty member, on Twitter.
“[It] pushes universities to offer in-person classes even if unsafe or no pedagogical benefit, or students to leave US amidst pandemic and risk inability to return.”
Brain damage
Google senior veep, and machine-learning guru, Jeff Dean was [4]equally scathing : “This ICE action against students on F-1 visas is incredibly damaging in many ways. It hurts US competitiveness, damages our world-class universities, and, if enacted, will disrupt the scholarly study of millions of the brightest students from around the world.”
There appear to be two main drivers behind the new policy, both by the White House. First, polls ahead of this November's elections show President Trump lagging further behind Democrat challenger Joe Biden.
There are a broad number of reasons why Trump’s approval is falling: his failure to get a hold on the coronavirus pandemic and unite the nation in stemming the bio-nasty's spread; the poor state of the economy and high unemployment as a result of that bungled pandemic response; and Trump’s rejection of a recent groundswell of support for greater racial equality in the States, especially when it comes to policing.
With the election looming, Trump and his advisors have gone back to a strategy that helped him win his first term: take a strong anti-immigrant stance, and appeal to White voters. In that sense, this new policy pushes the sense that the president will keep immigration to a minimum.
Reopening
Secondly, the president is keen to persuade and pressure businesses and institutions to reopen in order to help the economy recover in time for November.
The new policy will add significant pressure to US universities to hold at least some classes in-person to prevent the deportation of students, thus providing, in the White House’s eyes, momentum toward a general reopening of the nation from lockdown. If colleges do not hold the required level of in-person classes, they will suffer a significant loss in income and reputation as foreign students are forced to quit and return home.
On Tuesday, the president pushed the reopening message again, specifically stating that he wanted schools to reopen in the fall, even as surges in virus cases risk overwhelming hospitals.
In a series of conference calls and meetings with governors, mayors, and other regional leaders at the White House that continued through the day, the president and his senior officials argued that children needed to go back to class.
“We hope that most schools are going to be open, and we don’t want people to make political statements or do it for political reasons,” Trump [5]said .
“They think it’s going to be good for them politically so they keep the schools closed. No way. We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open and it’s very important. It’s very important for our country.”
Earlier, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos criticized schools over reopening. “I was disappointed frankly in schools and districts that didn’t figure out how to serve students or that just gave up and didn’t try,” she said on a conference call with governors. “A couple of hours of online school is not OK, and a choice of two days per week in the classroom is not a choice at all.” ®
Get our [6]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/23/white_house_visa_freeze/
[2] https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/bcm2007-01.pdf
[3] https://twitter.com/AndrewYNg/status/1280262285747871747
[4] https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1280379011110064129
[5] https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-07-07-20-intl/h_2994155b39a3174009a1b62c51aa8a56
[6] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
"The last thing America needs right now is a brain drain"
Too late. It's been present in the White House for many years now and filtering well from the top, down. When many of us vote with our emotions, rather than using a single gram of intelligence, we get what we deserve. America the Stupid has become our motto, wearing our "Science is not to be believed!" pins out and proud. I've become ashamed of coming from this inbred country, it's only gotten worse these past 20 or so years.
Re: "The last thing America needs right now is a brain drain"
We like to think in absolutes, but the brain drain happens piecemeal. In ten to twenty years, we can look back and point out how the brain drain hurt the US. Or maybe not.
Smart choices today will build the world of tomorrow. Or not.
The fact is that schools face a crap choice now. Reopen and get people sick then pay for that, or don't reopen and sacrifice all the students. The problem is that even if schools do reopen none know how many students will actually show, or how they will behave if they do. Trump and DeVos fancy they can order kids into the classrooms but a lot of kids, and their parents, have different ideas. Add in that plus the uncertainty that all non-us students face and the damage is already being done.
Of course telling Trump that something pisses off Harvard and Silicon Valley won't deter him, that is what he wants.
Donald Trump once told an interviewer "Those who spend a day with The Donald don't want to spend more time with The Donald." When all is said and done he may leave that to be America.
Harvard will have a single in-person class, social distancing 101, and skip the requirement.
Nobody from India/China is paying $50Kyear to do youtube lectures without the opportunity to earn immigration resident years
University of Hawaii
New rules sent to the professors today state that if classes which begin in person but convert to online due to an outbreak, can result in the deportation of foreign students.
Trump knows most of the foreign students are asian, especially Chinese. He's taking more revenge on innocents caught in the crossfire of his trade war.
Does the Big D.T. talk to mayors at all?
I get the impression that he thinks Amurka's mayors are happier than pigs in slop to keep businesses and schools closed, not sure who he's talking to. In my corner of the planet (in a Covid hotspot, btw), our mayors would love nothing more than for schools and businesses to re-open (keep the sales tax dollars flowing, get kids out of the house so parents/ carers can go back to work, put out the welcome mat for tourists) but they do NOT want to open the business door, see a renewed Covid spike, and then have to close again, and thus they are being VERY cautious about what can re-open, and how/when/if. Kicking foreign students back to their home countries is not just cruel, but also deprives the municipalities of the teensy bit more sales tax that is trickling into the general fund, since these students still have to eat, pay rent, and buy stuff. Not saying this is a ginormous wodge of spend, but I'm guessing every penny counts to already-strapped city budgets. (Of course, there is the "brain drain" issue already mentioned.) On the other side, from what I hear from teachers (which, granted, is not very much), they are not at all happy to be doing online/ distance learning (or "learning") since they know the kids are not keeping pace with where they would be in a real classroom (and that these lags will have to be made up somehow in the future) but they also don't want to risk more Covid spikes (some teachers/staff are elderly and/or have immune issues and now I hear that kids /do/ get Covid but it manifests differently than in adults and thus goes un-diagnosed). It would be nice if Big D.T. would defer to those closest to the situation, and who will be voted out of office (mayors, councils, school boards, etcetera) if their constituents don't agree with their plans.
No.
There is plenty of empirical evidence that this is a terrible plan in the long run, the fact that he is flogging it means he does not listen to anyone who would tell him otherwise.
Personally I don't think that he listens to anyone except those who already validate what he is doing. And the people closest to him like Mnucin and Kusher have long argued that closing will kill the markets so we have to "get America Going(tm)". And people around him Like Pence are too busy attending mass indoor gatherings of COVID-infected churchgoers to actually speak the truth (or see the light).
Put it another way and not to psychonalayze the guy, but he declared the Virus dead along time ago. He won't admit that he didn't win.
Re: No.
He surrounds himself with yes men, and watches his cheerleaders on Fox News for hours every morning when a real president would be working. He's living in an alternate reality bubble, which is the only reason he thinks he can tell people that coronavirus is contained though even Fox is starting to have trouble maintaining that fantasy with the biggest outbreaks now in red states. Being surrounded by yes men surely has to be the only reason he thinks that speaking up for the confederate flag is a winning campaign strategy - even senators from deep red old south states like South Carolina are speaking up against him on that!
If the students lose their visas and have to leave the economy loses all the money they spend on housing, food, and so forth. Hundreds of thousands of foreign students adds up to a lot of economic stimulus at a time when local economies - especially in college towns that will be already suffering at some level of shutdown if things are bad enough the schools can't have in-person instruction - badly need the help.
I knew some foreign students from India and China back when I was in school. None of them had jobs outside school, other than research related stuff for grad students. They came from families with a lot of money, lived in nice apartments, drove nice cars, and were definitely not taking jobs away from Americans. He's just doing this because he knows he'll get a bunch of cheers from the bozos who come to his rallies when he tells them he's kicking out all the foreign students from China. Of course they applaud when he drinks with one hand, so they are nothing more than trained monkeys who applaud on command.
magaaaa - maaagaaaa!
Yes,this is a good move by the shallow minded, petty, insecure spink white asshole we have been forced to put up with for the last 1,264 days. All universities produce is Marxists left leaning students anyways so why not force the universities to kill off some of their students, their student's parents and grandparents by requiring the students to go on campus in the middle of an escalating pandemic. The trump voters don't like the over-educated anyway and they really don't like 'foreigners', so this is a win-win. Didn't trump say you'd be winning so much with him you'd be tired of winning? Yaay!
On a rational note, I don't see how you can force me to risk my life (let's say I have one or more of CKD, COPD, compromised immunity due to organ transplant, etc) going to a classroom for a blatantly political attempt to get votes. Trump and DeVos aren't even trying to hide the fact that they're doing this for political reasons.
Never discount belief.
I used to think that it was all political but in this case, as in his threat to veto the defense bill over the confederate base names, all rational political calculus is against them. At this point, they really believe this crap.
Re: magaaaa - maaagaaaa!
Hey, AC,
Maybe, just maybe, if you bothered to vote, things might have turned out differently?
(I'm being an ass assuming you didn't)
Sometimes you just have to be there
Biology, chemistry, electronics and physics all have practical components. A few parts of the course can be converted into kit form for work from home but plenty depend on expensive equipment that is only reasonably available as a shared resource. Just about any subject benefits from a library. The books can be really expensive and try before you buy saves money for selecting the books you really need for most of the year and gives access to the ones you only need for hours. The other students are also important. Explaining something to someone else is an excellent test of whether you understand it. Often a concept does not make the journey from a lecturer to a whole room full of students but if some get it they can put it into words the others do understand.
As just being near the other students is a benefit, no course is completely online only. The open university understood this and includes some time with the students in the same room as a teacher even though the students chose the OU specifically to minimise time away from work, family or other commitments.
After a little thought, Trump's edict turns out to be a stream of words to make his core supporters feel happy but can easily be interpreted so they have no effect in the real world.
Re: Sometimes you just have to be there
I absolutely agree that the hardware on campus cannot be replaced by any kind of 'virtual' classroom. I also agree that one of the greatest benefits students receive when going to school is being face to face with professors and other students and cannot be replicated online.
However, this pandemic is (hopefully) temporary and to some is life threatening. Trump et al are forcing universities to put people at risk to get votes in November. This is a short-sighted political play without regard to the safety of the population. I have no idea how to give the current crop of students the education they're paying for (foreign students paying more so), but this is a bad move at this time and is being forced on the universities without a rational discussion of options.
Re: Sometimes you just have to be there
I entirely agree. I think this applies to most of life, really. I've certainly noticed that some types of activities I did at the office are not working as efficiently now that I am at home, and my job is one of the most easily virtualized ones. Still, I know that it is not safe for me to return to the office, and if the U.S.'s trend continues, it may not be safe for students to return to universities in a month or two. Given this safety concern, there are only a few ways to deal with it.
You could just cancel classes and postpone them for a time when optimal learning conditions are available again. This would harm plenty of students who will have delayed entry into the job market and may not have the economic ability to do nothing for a semester. You could bring all the students to the campus with the ability to send them back home if something happens, but in addition to increasing the likelihood of something happening, you have also created a bunch of chaos if you do exercise the option of sending the students away. You could try a hybrid model where some students show up and some don't, which would probably be bad because those who do show up get all the benefits you listed in your comment while those who go virtual aren't the primary focus of the university's planning (as well as all the concerns about bringing everyone back just scaled down a bit).
While you raise valid points, nobody is doing this because they think it's better. They're doing it because the situation is dangerous.
How?
How are they supposed to get home? Even if their home country still has open borders they may not be able to get a flight or transit through a hub.
Re: How?
Details, details, details. No-one's ever starved to death in a transit lounge. Yet.
Making America [Brain] Dead
Again.
There are a broad number of reasons why Trump’s approval is falling
First and foremost that he's an utter shitweasel.
Re: There are a broad number of reasons why Trump’s approval is falling
You, sir, are being most unkind to the first and foremost societiy of shitweasels. And to the second and nextmost shitweasels as well.
PSA
America: you've got an opportunity to end this madness in a few months. Use it wisely.