U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-14/harvard-and-u-s-make-deal-on-foreign-student-visas

by OminousWeapons • 6 years ago

498 246 6 years ago

bloomberg.com

jxm2622• 6 years ago

This article doesn't seem to go into much detail. Does anyone know if this applies to all colleges or just Harvard?

I'm digging around online now but my search skills are failing me

HenryKissinger2• 6 years ago

All colleges. Harvard was only among the first to challenge it.

jxm2622• 6 years ago

awesome, thanks for the info :)

christofdev• 6 years ago

https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/bcm2007-01.pdf

ebg132• 6 years ago

They cited time zone differences, unreliable or state-managed Internet and armed conflict in some of the students’ homelands.

I think it would be enlightening to see transcripts of the moments where each side said something convincing to the other.

Like...did Harvard representatives walk in and say "You know that this shit matters, right?" and then did the US representatives say "Oh shit. You're right. We never even thought of that." ? Or was there more to it?

There has to be more to it than that, right? "Struck a deal" implies that both sides gave something. So what did both sides give? Or did the US just walk back a move made without any foresight whatsoever when someone asked if they'd thought about the consequences?

ergocoder• 6 years ago

It probably something like " these foreign students bring billions of dollars to US". We'd really like to keep these customers.

ebg132• 6 years ago

But how is that striking "a deal"? That doesn't sound like giving something to get something.

nine_zeros4• 6 years ago

The ideal me hopes it was because someone at ICE had a humane heart. Someone who read through the outrage and uproar, internalized the problem and convinced everyone that they needed to rescind this.

But given their actions over the past 4 years and the general cruelty of Trump administration, I'm leaning towards "a deal" or rather someone in Trump admin realizing its hurting their voter base.

SpicyLemonZest4• 6 years ago

It's pretty plausible IMO that someone in the administration just told SEVP "hey, colleges are gonna reopen in the fall" and they didn't check to see if it was true.

atonse2• 6 years ago

Excellent. The system worked this time. People challenged executive branch action through the judicial system and the executive branch backed down.

But this should never have been an issue to begin with, think of all the unnecessary stress and anxiety this has caused for the hundreds of thousands of international students impacted by this.

nine_zeros4• 6 years ago

But this should never have been an issue to begin with, think of all the unnecessary stress and anxiety this has caused for the hundreds of thousands of international students impacted by this.

More importantly, the long term damage is done. The noise was heard loud and clear that America is only as competent as its leader. Prospective future students are likely going to be ultra careful before choosing this country.

HenryKissinger2• 6 years ago

The number of foreign students is at an all-time high.

ryanmarsh• 6 years ago

loud and clear that America is only as competent as its leader

The courts proved exactly the opposite. The system of checks and balances worked. I don't follow your assertion.

halfmatthalfcat• 6 years ago

This was the event that broke the camel's back? No, we've been laughed at and ridiculed for the past three years. Add this to the pile.

cwkoss• 6 years ago

And unfortunately it appears we will not get an opportunity to vote for a high competence leader in the November.

tanilama• 6 years ago

Why are you getting downvoted?

Confidence is definitely a thing.

Most of the students probably don't appreciate this self-inflicted drama in the first place.

No one really wins here.

DoofusOfDeath• 6 years ago

The noise was heard loud and clear that America is only as competent as its leader.

Honest question because I'm not a student of world politics: what countries have had consistently better governance over the last 20 years?

Every time some possibility comes to mind, I quickly recall a reason to cross it off the list.

nonce42• 6 years ago

The system worked this time.

I view the phrase "the system worked" as a red flag indicating that things went wrong in a way they shouldn't, not a positive thing. A successful outcome doesn't necessarily indicate things are fine.

A canonical example is the Space Shuttle boosters. The O-rings were supposed to block all the hot gases, but there was some gas leakage and erosion of the O-rings. Nothing bad happened and officials said this showed there was a sufficient safety factor. In other words, the system worked. They kept launching shuttles until an O-ring eroded all the way through and Challenger blew up. They should have recognized that erosion shouldn't have happened at all; successful launches despite erosion were an indication that things were dangerously wrong, not an indication that the system was working.

(I hope I haven't gone too far on a metaphorical tangent here.)

Reference: Feynman's report on Challenger: https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/51-l/docs/roge...

andromeduck• 6 years ago

It's called defense in depth. Not everything has to be all over nothing.

dcow• 6 years ago

I think in this case, however, the system also worked as designed. O-rings aren’t designed to erode. The government, on the other hand, has designed power checks to prevent exactly what happened: a well meaning but ultimately idiotic decision from adversely impacting peoples’ lives in ways that weren’t initially accounted for. In no way am I giving credit to anyone here, just pointing out that the analogy doesn't quite hold.

gen2202• 6 years ago

As it turns out, there were in fact engineers who recognized that the O rings were eroding and that this was dangerous. They even tried to communicate this fact to the people with launch cancelling authority. But they weren’t able to communicate it effectively enough to prevent the launch.

Apparently, all of the engineers knew intuitively that the problem was real and critical, but weren’t able to communicate it to their superiors, who lacked the same intuitive grounding. They failed to visualize the data convincingly, and the launch went as planned.

It was an example of the system working, until people ignored the warnings about the O-rings. That decision to move on, rather than to investigate critically, was the moment when the system shifted from working to failing.

Edward Tufte wrote a really convincing treatment of this in “The Visual Design of Quantitative Information, and Envisioning Information“, to motivate the importance of proper visualizations.

You can read a blog with the visualizations here [1] but I really recommend the book!

[1] https://www.asktog.com/books/challengerExerpt.html

baron_harkonnen• 6 years ago

I think it's more a case of the Trump administration momentarily forgetting the Harvard is basically a hedge fund that runs a college and that their revenue stream is not to be messed with.

If they added a clause that the rule only applied to colleges with an endowment of less than $1 billion it would continue along just fine.

psychometry• 6 years ago

Actually, in the case of Harvard it affected far more PhD students than tuition-paying undergrads. Also, dozens of universities, cities, and states signed on to this lawsuit. It has little to do with Harvard's bottom-line.

protastus• 6 years ago

The backup worked this time.

This is akin to a safety system taking over and restoring stability, despite a major component failure. From the outside, things "worked" but backups are designed for extraordinary and rare circumstances, not for continuous use.

kabdib• 6 years ago

Or a safety system, like an airbag.

Not something you want to be triggering as a matter of course or to be proud of having done so, ever.

avs733• 6 years ago

government by normalization of deviance?

hongloumeng• 6 years ago

I guess. But we've ramped up uncertainty, people are afraid, and people who have been considering coming to the US will now go elsewhere.

ardit33• 6 years ago

Is this administration very incompetent, or very sadistic?

If they rescinded the order, means they:

1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order.

2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the foreign kids, while posturing to their base

3) Force universities to stay open in the middle of the pandemic in order to help Trump's reelection bid... (not sure how breakouts of covid infections at colleges will help him)

farnsworth• 6 years ago

2 is the answer. They probably hardly cared whether the rule was successfully implemented. They succeeded in spreading FUD and in the future, prospective international students will think twice before deciding to study in the US. The damage is done.

kyleee• 6 years ago

More likely, some will think twice and most will still come

sitkack• 6 years ago

Lots of top tier universities are already opening foreign campuses. Future students will just end up there. This move accelerated the rise of foreign top tier mind work at the expense of that work in the USA. Couple this with the antagonistic stance by the administration to foreign highly capable workers and you have a recipe for a tech softening in the USA.

This is good for the world. Part of me sees this as a cynical ploy to tear down others' futures to support the base. I do think the US needs massive education reform, costs are through the roof and large universities are farming foreign students but this isn't the way to do it.

ben77992• 6 years ago

#2 - This was just a big distraction to get the ADD media to forget about Russian bounties on US troops.

grugagag3• 6 years ago

I doubt the troops will forget it though and this will comeback as the election nears.

briandear2• 6 years ago

How about we start requiring proof before we just endlessly allow unnamed sources to dictate our outrage? The Russian Bounty story has all sorts of problems.

https://fair.org/home/in-russian-bounty-story-evidence-free-...

This is a theme of the media: use unnamed sources with no ability for stories to be independently verified and then create an anti-Trump scandal over it. Over and over we go through this.

munificent• 6 years ago

It's both, actually.

Hamfisted malice.

ceejayoz• 6 years ago

Perhaps most disturbingly, it demonstrates how effective non-hamfisted malice might be.

hirundo• 6 years ago

The Trump campaign vaulted to the top during the 2016 primary with his hard line immigration proposals. The border wall promise was his political breakthrough. Immigration is the key issue for many of his voters. He has been consistently strict on immigration accordingly. The decision maker was probably just following that policy line, and then got overruled by the details. In particular I assume Trump's lawyers predicted a bruising, losing court fight.

TechBro8615• 6 years ago

It's a combination of #2 and #3. The Trump administration has a strategy that should be very clear by now: implement or propose outlandish policy, then use it as leverage for gains in some orthogonal area while walking it back. This is deal-making 101, Trump (or his ghost-writer) writes about it in all his books, and it's an obvious trend. He uses this tact in domestic policy and trade deals, and tbh it's pretty effective.

SonOfKyuss• 6 years ago

It is effective for short-term gains, but it also causes so much chaos and destruction that it isn’t sustainable long-term (see: Trump bankruptcies)

scott_paul• 6 years ago

It's just red meat for the base. The administration doesn't actually want to restrict immigration, they just know that they were hired to restrict immigration, so they have to appear to be working on that. Notice that every single time they've done any kind of immigration restriction, they either walk it back within 72 hours, or allow themselves to be stopped in court. It's all just a sham for the voters in an election year.

pnw_hazor2• 6 years ago

Mostly 3. (or more charitably they hoped the covid emergency would be winding down by now)

Here, ICE attempted to rollback the current emergency rule and put in place a new rule that was broader and more flexible than the pre-covid-19 rule. They have pulled that back now.

But, as soon as the Covid-19 national emergency order expires, the current emergency rule can be easily reverted to the stricter pre-covid-19 rule if that's what the Admin wants. Otherwise, a new rule (following administrative law rule-making requirements) can be made to implement the broader/flexible policy ICE was seeking here.

edit-to-add: Trump could probably issue an Executive Order directing ICE to change its rules.

maddyboo2• 6 years ago

Can someone explain how foreign students taking online classes gives them ‘full rein’ and is a threat to national security?

ICE also contends that a full slate of virtual coursework compromises national security by giving foreign students free rein within the U.S., and says a freeze would undermine “the deference afforded administrative agencies in complex and interrelated fields like immigration enforcement.”

SpicyLemonZest4• 6 years ago

No, and I doubt ICE can either. It's normal in this stage of a lawsuit to just throw out every argument you can brainstorm regardless of whether it makes much sense.

balls187• 6 years ago

ICE stated they would have "free rein" not "full rein."

The argument is essentially that by allowing students to take online classes, they are free to travel anywhere within the united states. With mandatory in person classes, they would be restricted to being near campus.

The federal government would have a harder time keeping track of students, as their schools would no longer really have an idea if the students are nearby or not.

Which as others have pointed out, really grasping at straws, and if there is a a legitimate concern here, I'm certain that schools could come up with a system to keep tabs on their students visa holders.

vdfs• 6 years ago

Students will have many open tabs anyway

amf122• 6 years ago

they are free to travel anywhere within the united states.

Theoretically that's true for on-campus courses too. Most (at least that I know of) universities don't track attendance. So the students are still free to travel anywhere as long as they keep submitting online assignments and are physically present for any exams.

haecceity• 6 years ago

We want foreign students to experience freedom and liberty in America.

maddyboo2• 6 years ago

Thanks for correcting – free rein, I mixed up the two adjectives in the quote.

dmode• 6 years ago

When I was a student, I did travel throughout the country during breaks, weekends, holidays etc. Didn't realize this was a thread to national security

mumblemumble• 6 years ago

Sounds very similar to the Courtier's Reply.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtier%27s_reply

alexmingoia• 6 years ago

It's not a threat to national security. Unfortunately Congress has given the President the power to do pretty much whatever he wants for whatever reason with regard to immigration enforcement.

The Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president authority to do whatever he wants:

"Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants..."

supernova87a• 6 years ago

Another example of the haphazard throw-it-against-the-wall approach of what our country has chosen to have as our national experiment.

This cannot be good for either side. Do we want to live in a system where if you hadn't been paying attention to the news for 1 week, we might have kicked >100,000 people out of the country?

Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for anyone? How do we get past this?

tmountain• 6 years ago

Executive branch is overpowered partially because the senate refuses to do its job. The original intent was for the senate to be slower moving and "cool" house legislation leading to slower moving governing structures. Over time, the executive branch was given additional power to "get stuff done", and we find ourselves in the situation we have today.

gaukes• 6 years ago

On the other hand.. the overreach of the executive branch is a response to the political deadlock in the legislative branch.

If we end up in a situation where neither branch can respond quickly and effectively, that may be worse than what we have now.

vmception• 6 years ago

and apparently, direct election of senators in 1913's 17th amendment was supposed to be the patch

now we are just out of solutions and too divided to get further patches in

umanwizard• 6 years ago

the senate refuses to do its job

It's not really the Senate's fault. Opposition parties almost never vote with government parties in any democratic legislature, so you shouldn't expect them to in the US.

The real problem is the outdated system that is set up to (1) only allow two major parties to exist, so a European-style coalition government isn't possible, and (2) require both major parties to agree in order to pass any legislation.

alexfromapex2• 6 years ago

Banning lobbying which is going to be a difficult battle for sure

grandmczeb4• 6 years ago

“Lobbying” as the reflexive reason for all political ills is tiresome, especially considering aggressive lobbying by universities is likely what caused this reversal.

X6S1x6Okd1st• 6 years ago

Why do you think lobbying had anything to do with this?

I interpreted this as mostly driven by the nativism of Trump et al.

newacct583• 6 years ago

Literally no one was "lobbying" for this policy. This was a nativist reflex, designed to seize an opportunity to expel a few foreigners who would otherwise not be removable. It's very much in keeping with the anti-immigration stances the administration has taken in other areas.

mschuster91• 6 years ago

How do we get past this?

Reform the entire election system:

- 4 year term length for House elections instead of 2 so that representatives can get stuff done instead of having to spend every second year in election campaigns

- reform campaign financing to a government funded model like in Germany (and entirely ban PACs) so that the influence of big money on government is eliminated

- if possible, get rid of the Presidential election by the population and have the President elected by Congress to prevent the situation of having a President without his own legislative majority

- get rid of FPTP and introduce proportional voting to reduce polarization and create more diversity in politics

- get rid of voter suppression and gerrymandering, make Sunday a voting day (or alternatively, a federal holiday), enforce universal mail-in voting across states

epicureanideal• 6 years ago

Some would say having Presidents without a legislative majority and a legislative majority without a President is a feature, not a bug.

VWWHFSfQ• 6 years ago

I would also have a single 6-year term for the President. No more re-election campaigns mid-presidency.

lowmemcpu2• 6 years ago

Taking a look at all the agency websites under the Executive branch gives a pretty incredible overview of how out-of-control it's gotten [1]. And the number of czars have been growing [2] under both Obama and Trump (though I guess this administration doesn't use that title)

[1] https://www.loc.gov/rr/news/fedgov.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_...

magicalist• 6 years ago

And the number of czars have been growing [2] under both Obama and Trump (though I guess this administration doesn't use that title)

That list is "executive branch officials who have been described by the media as a czar of some kind", not anything official or affecting the duties of that person in any particular way.

x87678r• 6 years ago

At least we haven't had a govt shutdown for a while, can't be long until the next one.

sjg007• 6 years ago

These only happen when Democrats have the Presidency and Republicans control a chamber.

lend000• 6 years ago

If I understand correctly, this was always the policy, and they just took a few months longer than they should have to make an adjustment removing the rule for special pandemic circumstances.

vsskanth• 6 years ago

they had already made an exception for F1 students to attend remote classes at the start of the pandemic. They were planning to end the exception for the fall semester, hence the outcry.

afarrell2• 6 years ago

Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for anyone? How do we get past this?

As a guy with inattentive-subtype ADHD, I've long suspected there are fairly strong curb-cut benefits[1] to re-structuring organizations to work better for ADHDers. Might this be true of American political life? Initial suspicions:

1. Reduce the interface-complexity of government. Improve encapsulation. This may mean that government does _more_ in certain domains. I moved from the US to the UK in 2016 and the impact that a cross-cutting interface simplification like the NHS's "free at point of care" has just astounding. Income taxes over here are also much more clear, even if you are running a 1-person small business but especially if you are just an employee. I think is worth paying some higher monetary taxes if government can impose a lower tax on Working Memory.

For more on the idea of "Interface Complexity", see A Philosophy of Software Design by John Ousterhout.

2. Improve baseline health outcomes with some more wholistic (yet still evidence-based) interventions. A broad swath of Americans are stressed and often sleep-deprived. This is not conducive to thoughtful decision-making. Or epistemically-sound interpretation of information.

3. Improve access to mental health care. A whole bunch of Americans are descended from people who...

   A. were so excited by the prospect of extravagant wealth that they would abandon their community and kinship group to live and work among strangers.

   B. belonged to physically (sometimes sexually) abusive households for multiple generations until 1865. And then they got married to people who grew up in abusive households. (some of my own family history)

   C. escaped from abusive & traumatic situations and traveled across an ocean to a land of strangers.

   D. were so willing to break with social norms (or join social-norm-breaking subcultures) that they would abandon most of their possessions and travel across an ocean to a land of strangers.

   E. were so fearful about the prospect of a government, regional, or neighborhood conspiracy that they decided to move across an ocean -- before there was sufficient evidence for most people around them to try to flee!

Those who chose to come here weren't necessarily wrong. My wife's branch of their her broad family has a bias toward distrust and falls into group E. The rest were murdered by a massive German government conspiracy in the early 1940s. Some psychological variation is genetically heritable. Abuse gets passed down from parent to child (My maternal grandfather falls into group B and...yea...). Much of America's demographic history has acted as a giant filter some traumatized and scared people.

4. Reduce the social norms that promote catastrophizing. Currently, those who seek a return to specificity, clarity, or ask "is this reflected by the observable facts" in political discussions are often told they are pedantic, privileged, or tone-policing. We need a culturally-accepted way to return to a calm, measured way of thinking about policy -- not because policy is some intellectual game that doesn't matter. The stakes are genuinely life-or-death, because the stakes are life-or-death and that requires a calm mind with an eye seeking a clear understanding of a possibly-horrifying reality. It is good to be willing to say whatever will return to clarity and fact-focus with conviction and counter those who shame people for saying it.

5. Reduce the incentives to nuisance alarms in the news. Not sure how to do this.

6. Improve the number and quality of resources available for people of many professions to learn honest rhetoric and in particular to learn the how to clearly describe the "why" of their profession's policy recommendations. "Start with why" is the interpersonal version of well-regulated dopamine signals.

[1] https://medium.com/@mosaicofminds/the-curb-cut-effect-how-ma...

mariodiana• 6 years ago

I'm not a lawyer, but how is it Harvard and MIT had standing in court for this case?

amerine• 6 years ago

Why wouldn’t they? Your question doesn’t make sense to me

oh_sigh• 6 years ago

You can't just sue because you are displeased with something - you need to have suffered, or will suffer direct harm from the thing(this is called locus standi). I'm guessing OP is saying that Harvard/MIT would not be harmed from this, only the students would be harmed(so they would need to be the ones to sue, not the college).

It kind of makes sense - if everything is online courses, it doesn't matter to Harvard whether the students are at an apartment in Cambridge St or in the middle of the Mongolian steppe, as long as you have internet access.

On the other hand, if students are deciding to attend some other university(say, one in their home country) and Harvard can show that harms them, then they would have standing

wittyreference• 6 years ago

They are reliant on these students for income. They are directly harmed by the policy. Therefore, standing?

SpicyLemonZest4• 6 years ago

They sued partially on behalf of their students, and they also stood to lose a lot of tuition money themselves.

aspaceman2• 6 years ago

IAANAL but I think since they were demonstrably harmed by the policy, they can file suit against it.

charonn03• 6 years ago

19. Plaintiffs have standing to bring this case. Defendants’ actions will cause an imminent, concrete, and irreparable risk to Plaintiffs’ ability to achieve their educational missions unless halted by this Court.
20.Plaintiffs also have standing to assert claims on behalf of their F-1 visa-holding students, who face the imminent, concrete, and irreparable risk of harm to themselves, their families, their educations, their short-term and long-term health, and their future education and employment prospects if Defendants’ actions are not halted by this Court.

[0] https://www.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/sevp_fil...

gnulinux4• 6 years ago

Others gave you good answers but also consider this. There are thousands of PhD students who create value for these universities. They not only do research, help research being made, they also teach others. Kicking all these people out of US due to whims of ICE harms universities' financial interest as well. Universities are not making their education remote because they choose to do so. They're doing precisely to protect students and faculty. It's capricious for ICE to see this and conclude "if you do that then I'll kick all your students out of this country". Universities invest in PhD students, they're part of faculty.

gwright4• 6 years ago

FWIW, it is helpful to understand that this isn't ICE making policy randomly but in fact just enforcing the regulations surrounding student visas. The existing regulations were relaxed in March but the underlying regulatory idea is that you don't need a visa for online education and online education is not sufficient for a visa to be issued.

I tend to think that it was premature to rescind the temporary waiving of the oversight regulations, but that isn't the same thing as saying the underlying regulations don't have a rationale basis.

ben77992• 6 years ago

This program was a wild success beyond Trump's wildest dreams.

No one is talking about Russian Bounties on US troops. Crisis averted.

He just keeps on winning!

chvid• 6 years ago

Are you serious?

To me this adds to the picture of an administration who is about to loose the forthcoming election and is acting more and more eratic.

But I am not American so I cannot tell whether this is actually convincing to the broader electorate?

root_axis• 6 years ago

To me this adds to the picture of an administration who is about to loose the forthcoming election

I wouldn't be so sure, there is still a lot of time before now and the election. We saw the lengths the administration is willing to go to in order to win. Blackmailing the Ukraine to make up lies about their political opponents is just the worst thing we know about, and as disgusting as it was, the aftermath of that shows that half the country supports this type of behavior as a means to an end. I seriously doubt we'll see a transition of power during this election.

addled• 6 years ago

I'm American, and I cannot tell either.

The thing is, sitting Presidents usually get re-elected.

Last election seemed like there was a Trump-related controversy every week, and he still managed to win.

They say cats hit terminal velocity after falling only about 3 stories, so they are just as likely to survive a 10 storey fall. If Trump can get elected after dozens of questionable statements and actions, why not hundreds?

gnulinux4• 6 years ago

I'm American and I have no idea what's going on either. The admin is behaving very erratic and POTUS is always talking about peripheral issues and doesn't address the current crisis (i.e. COVID, 20% unemployment, depression etc). I don't know if it means they're very confident with themselves that they'll be reelected, or it means they're in a crisis mode trying to find new ways to get more vote.

vharuck• 6 years ago

People keep saying things like this, but is there any proof it works? Sure, the 24 hour news channels will bounce around, but as a vote-winning strategy it's done very poorly. The Republicans lost the House in 2018. Trump's never had to contend for reelection himself, so his "distraction tactics" haven't been proven.

I use quotes because I've stopped believing he has tactics. At most, he does things impulsively, hears how it's spun by lackeys, then adopts their rationalization himself. Maybe he'll keep it in mind the next time he decides something.

yingw787• 6 years ago

Yeah this isn't a viable way to formulate public policy. It isn't new either, happened with the travel ban early on. Soft power, and even the viability of a country, depends on certain long-term guarantees, guarantees that the current administration has blown away completely.

I'm pessimistic that even if a change in administration occurs early next year (and that is a major if), there would be anything any administration can do before the next Donald Trump takes office 4 or 8 years from now. I'm betting that the next "Trump" will be far smarter and won't make this one's mistakes. And if the Republic falls, no place on Earth will be safe.

That's not a reason to lie down and die. It's a reason to fight back with the frenzy of despair. I hope a quarter million dead by December will be enough. Enough for folks to remember that elections have consequences.

LordFast• 6 years ago

Elementary school politics. This would be a hilarious sitcom if it weren't for all the thousands of people getting hurt by this dysfunctional joke of a government.

wuxb• 6 years ago

Indeed. It was like "I'm going to make them an offer they can't accept."

RobRivera• 6 years ago

A part of me believes this is more feature and less bug of the government. "Blame the disfunction, not the leadership thats elected every 2 years".

DaiPlusPlus• 6 years ago

How is this not a bug? A straightforward patch would be the introduction of FPTP and moving the executive role from the office of the head-of-state to a body controlled by congress.

KorematsuFred4• 6 years ago

I am an immigration activist (Indian-national immigration) and closely working with students/h1bs as well as following work of anti-immigrant people.

It is very clear to me that current admin is acting out of malevolence. This is not about protecting American interests or even upholding law. This is about a careful strategy called "attrition through enforcement". Make life difficult of immigrants so they leave voluntarily over time without need for any drastic law, also since the impact of this strategy is felt over time (just like climate change) no big players feel the need to act against it. (E.g. Google might not even realize what is happening by the time it is very late).

There is a reason why most immigration law, processes and regulation exists and not all of them are implemented by "open border" folks in Obama or Bush administration. But the current admin people are operating under that weird assumption. So they look at every immigration benefit as "exploit" and try to close it without understanding its broader impact. Their approach is "lets try and see". They either lose in court or some lobby manages to convince Trump. This is not the first battle this admin has lost in court and it wont be last.

Even though I am pro-immigration, I understand that American people have the 100% right to regulate who comes in, but regulation implies application of law, which must follow due process, should be predictable and in general should honor contract. Otherwise there is simply no incentive to follow law for anyone.

Current admin's "attrition via enforcement" has worked pretty well for students from India.

As of 2020:

Total Indian students in Canada : 172,000 (up from 76,000 in 2016) Indian students enrollment in USA : 64,000 (down from 86,000) [Note this is new students enrolling. Total students is probably 2.5x and 4x if you count students working on OPT]

ngngngng• 6 years ago

A well known religious University near me just started offering "in person" (wink wink) classes where attendance would not be taken. I was proud to see it.

thecleaner• 6 years ago

I guess they understand that behind all the symbolism religion should be about welfare. Kudos.

dmlittle• 6 years ago

I figured some universities would start doing things like this. You can even make the class special in that it's pass/fail, doesn't affect your GPA, doesn't appear in your transcript, it's a special class that is free and doesn't increase your tuition, etc. Glad to know it's no longer going to be required to pull moves like this.

bredren• 6 years ago

The criteria was actual not very challenging to meet. I think part of the reason they backed off was because the intent was not enforceable.

msla• 6 years ago

Loopholes work until a judge uses their ability to exercise judgment and judges that they don't work.

Some people refuse to accept that laws are administered by humans.

generationP• 6 years ago

Actually, most universities don't take attendance. It's a waste of time, it punishes pro-social behavior (there is no good reason for people feeling sick to go to class), and it's infantilizing. "Attendance required" often means "we will notice if you never attend, and then will feel less bad failing you if you don't do your homework either".

wahern• 6 years ago

My law school classes took attendance. Rigorously. Because time management is a critical skill for attorneys, judges don't tolerate any amount of unannounced absenteeism, and missing filing deadlines can be and often is extremely costly, not just for you but for your client. (Also, taking attendance weeds out the liars. The ABA has strict attendance requirements and you're not supposed to get a degree if you miss them.)

If was a very tough transition because, of course, both in undergraduate and in professional life lackadaisical attitudes were tolerated, especially so long as you otherwise performed the substantive work.

We all love to rationalize away those things we dislike doing. But there was no wiggle room to rationalize it away in law school. I'm sure the military is similar.

powersnail• 6 years ago

Most universities don't require attendance, but quite a number of professors do take attendance and count it as part of the grade.

There were plenty courses where at the beginning of each lecture, we were asked to complete a trivial quiz (one question quiz) with iClickr. I believe that it was just a convenient way of taking attendance.

sgnelson• 6 years ago

This depends largely on the state, and whether it's a public or private school.

Because for some schools, it's all about that FTE (Full Time Equivalent, a measure of how many students are taking how many classes, and how some state schools get their chunk of funding.) And while FTE isn't directly related to attendance more State legislatures/University boards are combining the two and want to make sure that their funds are being spent wisely and students are actually in class.

Also accrediting bodies like to know that students are actually showing up as well.

So while taking attendance is silly for college students, it's not a waste of time or silly for the powers that be.

(I know this because my friends who teach are now being chastised if they don't keep daily attendance records.)

aripickar• 6 years ago

If my 2000 person intro to computer science class required roll call, not only would everyone not fit in the lecture hall, but attendance would take the whole class period.

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

When I attended Caltech, it was institute policy that taking attendance was prohibited and attendance was not a requirement for the grade.

But I did discover that skipping class was not an option for me.

I did enjoy, however, being treated like an adult for the first time in my life.

turndown• 6 years ago

I have only just graduated and attendance was regularly taken and part of our grade in some instances(CS degree.)

nharmonia• 6 years ago

I'm about to graduate from UWaterloo now and have only had 2 courses with attendance - language courses. I really liked the option of going to classes when I wanted as I found that end up being on my laptop during class anyway.

Two CS courses(1st year) had a clicker thing going on where you had to answer questions and it'd be worth 5% of the grade. Some courses also had a key chunk of info taken out of the pdfs so as to incentivize going to class. I definitely wasn't a big fan, but it wasn't hard to learn about the topics from other university's notes available online

KorematsuFred4• 6 years ago

Average university that admits lots of foreign students take attendance including biometric attendance. This is especially true for universities where students are in constant crosshair of ICE/USCIS etc. This is done not because University cares about you attending but they have to comply with the law.

If you admit a student from Pakistan in your Santa Clara campus but ICE finds the student working in New Jersey, the student gets deported and University admin might face criminal charges. So any university where this is a risk factor, takes attendance seriously.

In some cases US federal government has setup fraudulent universities themselves, worked actively with Dept. of State to promote these universities in India and to Indian students studying in other universities as "no need to attend" university and then entrapped these students and their employers.

lefrenchy• 6 years ago

Such an embarrassing blunder, of many blunders, for this administration.

LiquidSky• 6 years ago

This was election year red meat for Trump's base, which his campaign has explicitly made their sole focus. It lets them tell the true believers that Trump tried to keep the evil foreigners out but the liberal deep state traitors stopped him, that's why they need to keep supporting Trump. That's what's behind all of these absurd attacks on immigrants, queer people, etc that instantly get struck down.

quadrifoliate2• 6 years ago

Yeah, in some ways this was the perfect outcome for that kind of posturing.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that an actual drop in international student numbers would likely have hurt colleges in Republican-controlled states worse than Democrat-controlled ones. American students armed with student loans would still flock to top universities to make up for the international student shortfall, and I can't think of a top 10 [1] university off the top of my head that's in a state with a Republican governor.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...

RHSeeger• 6 years ago

I was under the impression that the law that was already in place was that purely online courses were not allowed. And that it had been in place for a long time. After coming out and stating "this is already the law", and resulting pushback against it, the thing changed by this administration was to allow purely online courses for visa students.

Are you saying that allowing purely online learning for students with visas is a blunder, or am I misinformed about this?

stu2b502• 6 years ago

The blunder was retracting the special exception made during Spring 2020 that allowed F and M visa students to take online classes.

The pandemic is far from over, especially in the US, a fact which is obvious to everyone. The retraction is pure stupidity. Of course it would be unreasonable to ask int students to attend in person classes given the situation.

ineedasername• 6 years ago

The problem isn't the original rule, or the possible retraction of the temporary exemption of that rule. Of course at some point it will be retracted. It was, however, instituted for the purpose of dealing with a state of emergency, which is still officially in place. The government has some leeway in policy making, but capricious & unreasoned decisions can be struck down, and this could fall into that category given the circumstances that produced the policy still obtained. (Regarding capricious/unreasoned decisions, see also the Supreme Court's recent ruling on DACA: It was not because the SC said DACA couldn't be eliminated, it was because the policy change did not go through the legally mandated process for such changes)

The problem was also the timing. Students under an F1 visa must remain enrolled in an eligible program. If they are not, they have 60 days to leave the country. College semesters often end around mid-May, we're in mid-July, meaning as of the date of this announcement last week, students in online courses had already failed to be enrolled in an applicable program for nearly 60 days and would have a week or three to pack their bags and leave the country.

Before that, they could try to figure out if their mix of online or hybrid courses qualified as sufficiently "in person". This was without formal definitions from the administration of what constituted a sufficiently "in-person" course with respect to hybrid courses: The general policy was announced but there was never any official posting to the Federal Register that detailed the definitions, limits, exceptions, etc. In the announcement, such details were promised, but never materialized.

So, students had 1-2 weeks to panic and determine if their schools:

1) had any in-person courses

2) if so, determine if any applied to their program

3) If 1 & 2 were a "no", find, apply, get accepted, and register at an alternate school with applicable in-person courses

4) Having spent time on 1,2 & 3, vacate the country within a handful of days.

jimbob45• 6 years ago

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially.

It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capitalized on a situation and should be congratulated for that, regardless of whether or not you agree with the politics.

I would hope that the DNC would learn this tactic and employ it equally as well in the future.

JaggedJax• 6 years ago

I really hope we don't all devolve into acting like this.

fblp• 6 years ago

A huge opputunity cost of this kind of behavior is further distraction from forming policy that actually improves the lives of the community.

benrbray• 6 years ago

I'm sorry, what? You think it's a good thing for our politicians to waste everyone's time by pushing policies they know will never pass / will be struck down in court, just to win political points? IMO this sort of thing is exactly what's wrong with the political climate right now. This sort of behavior makes it all about "us vs them" and shuts down any sort of nuanced discussion about what's best for the country.

refurb2• 6 years ago

Dude, you have no idea what happens behind closed doors. It’s absolutely a common political move to fight for something you don’t really care about and then use it as a bargaining chip to get what you do want.

TigeriusKirk• 6 years ago

This happens literally all the time, and has for 35+ years I've been following politics

sharadov• 6 years ago

Same with the "Muslim ban" , "DACA", its posturing but works very well with their base.

abvdasker2• 6 years ago

At this point the Trump admin is likely to do everything possible to try and drive the news cycle away from the pandemic. Everything the current administration does until the election should be understood through that lens.

A4ET8a8uTh0• 6 years ago

For many it is a sigh of relief. I am almost afraid of hitting administration too much for fear of having them dig in again.

psds2• 6 years ago

Is the guy who decides visa policy not able to understand the plan coming from the guy who decides defense policy? We need the smart people here, not there.

throwawaygh2• 6 years ago

I'm not relieved. Or, only partially relieved.

One of the core arguments was that the Feds can't pull funds for their stated purpose, which was to encourage/force schools to open ("The government has provided no reason for its abrupt and unexplained shift. That is unsurprising, since... its purpose—as expressed by Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli—is to 'encourage schools to reopen.' In essence, Defendants are using the vulnerability of international students as leverage to force a broad reopening for reasons wholly disconnected from the underlying statute and regulation... Defendants have thus violated the APA by promulgating a policy based on factors which Congress has not intended it to consider.").

I think there's a good chance that the admin backed down here so that there's no pre-existing precedent implying (or explicitly stating) that they can't use purse strings and other extra-congressional-intent mechanisms to force K12 to open in August.

pnw_hazor2• 6 years ago

I think they backed down because the language of the emergency rule lifting the in-person course requirement said it would remain “in effect for the duration of the emergency.”

The Covid-19 National Emergency Declaration is still in force.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump admin is working on an Executive Order. It would get around a lot of the arguments Harvard/MIT were making related to improper administrative rule-making by ICE.

WalterBright2• 6 years ago

The federal government did use the threat of withdrawal of highway funds to get all 50 states to lower the speed limit to 55.

tropdrop2• 6 years ago

Please cite what you're referencing next time - it was not clear from your comment on a current event if this is something that also happened recently, or in the last century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law

throwawaygh2• 6 years ago

CONGRESS used the threat of withdrawal of highway funds to get all 50 states to lower the speed limit to 55.

From my quote of the amicus brief: Defendants have thus violated the APA by promulgating a policy based on factors WHICH CONGRESSS DID NOT INTEND IT TO CONSIDER

( the all-caps is for emphasis because I can't see italics well anymore and HN doesn't have bold; I'm not yelling :) )

cortesoft• 6 years ago

For something like this, it really matters which part of the federal government takes the action.

The important part is maintaining separation of powers... making sure the Executive branch doesn't overstep its authority into the legislative branch territory.

ploxiln• 6 years ago

I'm not sure about that, I've seen many states with 65mph and 75mph highway speed limits ... but you might be thinking about the drinking age, which was raised to 21 years in all states by withdrawing highway funds if they did not pass such laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

qtplatypus2• 6 years ago

Not quite. What it did was offer highway funds in exchange for the 55 speed limit. The difference is threatening to withdraw pre exisiting funds in exchange for the state doing something is illegal but introducing new funds is legal.

KorematsuFred4• 6 years ago

We will find out as the Panda vs Wolf case proceeds. This case was filed today and challenges President's recent proclamation banning entry for some H visa holders.

Their case makes arguments very similar to yours.

rdiddly2• 6 years ago

Show of hands, who looks around today at the biggest challenges and problems we face, the ones that affect the greatest numbers of people the most perniciously, and that need swift & decisive solutions at almost any cost, and concludes that they're the ones having to do with foreign students being in the country taking online classes?

threeseed• 6 years ago

a) The government can do more than one thing at a time.

b) Given that so many startups were founded by immigrants who studied here I would consider it a pretty important issue to address.

rdiddly2• 6 years ago

a) I think it probably can't do any things.

b) They addressed it by trying to make them go home, get it now?

qtplatypus2• 6 years ago

Yes the government can do more then one thing. However the US government has finite resources so why should it expend resources on kicking students out but not on more useful things.

vmh1928• 6 years ago

Foreign students are big money for the Industrial Education Complex and the loss of that revenue presented a real threat. Since the alumni of the IEC, no matter what political party, run, well, everything, the idea had no chance. At best it was political theater to agitate the base.

qserasera2• 6 years ago

I'm honestly displeased with this ending. Universities that want to commit 100% learning online should not charge full price.

Universities that are 100% online before Covid should not be able to grant visas as they have no campus.

There is a LOT unregulated, unlegislated here and a lot that needs to be organized now. Many organizations will continue to set unacceptable standards for education and in my opinion need to be reigned in. MIT, Harvard's global relationship, albeit special by influence and money, should have to follow what the government sets. Government should have edified that universities without campuses cannot grant visas as well as a variety of other things.

In short this is a missed opportunity and a waste of time, much like many/all plans of this administration.

laGrenouille• 6 years ago

I do not disagree with your opinions about tuition or universities that were 100% online prior to the pandemic, but the original rule and subsequent retraction little to do with either point. None of these rules (directly) concern tuition money and it would be nearly impossible at the moment for a foreign student to work through the U.S. visa program to study at remote schools that do not have a history of issuing student visas.

By the far the largest group of students effected by the policy are foreign nationals that did not return to their home countries in the spring and would be subject to immediate deportation in the fall depending on their school's form of instruction. This was a purely vindictive and xenophobic move by the administration. I was extremely happy to hear of this policy reversal. It (at least temporarily) removes some pointless stress on millions of students who already have more things to worry about than they should.

qserasera2• 6 years ago

EDIT

qwerty4561272• 6 years ago

Am I the only one thinking fighting to rid the country of the students resourceful enough to study in Harvard and MIT is madness? I would rather give them citizenship without even waiting for them to graduate.

totalZero3• 6 years ago

For the sake of circumspection, I suppose a counterpoint to your thinking might go like this......

These institutions receive an abundance of high-quality applications every year and choose only a few; for every admitted international student, several amazing domestic applicants are rejected. The government does not need to bend over backwards for the international students who won the admissions lottery, because they already have a huge advantage. Rather, it might prefer to fight for the interests of its own citizens, whose advancement is in their personal best interest as well as that of the nation.

If an international student follows the established legal processes whereby a foreign person can become an American citizen, he, too, can benefit from a system that protects the interest of American citizens.

qwerty4561272• 6 years ago

Just fix the system the way more students can be admitted and graduate. As many as possible (while maintaining the quality).

This can be especially easy now as the universities target to become 100% online and the number of students whom you can let attend a lecture is virtually unlimited.

TheCoelacanth2• 6 years ago

The counterpoint to that is that international students are a cash cow for universities.

They aren't taking away seats from domestic students. They are subsidizing the ability for more domestic students to study there.

limbicsystem• 6 years ago

I was talking recently to an Indian colleague whose son was admitted to McGill as an CS undergraduate. He had a very smooth transition through Canadian customs. Then was met right on the other side by representatives from McGill who provided a phone (to call his mother in India), a meal, and then talked him through the process of working with Canadian immigration to apply for permanent residency in a few years if he wanted to stay. The contrast with the US approach could not be starker.

tibbydudeza• 6 years ago

Kind of strange that the Trump administration would pull back on this one considering they locked up kids of illegal immigrants in cages ... there must be lots of GOP Harvard alumni then.

biolurker1• 6 years ago

It's not "US" it's Trump backs down from a rage comment he thought on the spot. That's how crazy the world has become.

Fjolsvith• 6 years ago

The school closures are going to hurt universities far more than most know: Sports activity revenue.

U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

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