
MIT and Harvard file suit against new ICE regulations - andytgl
http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-and-harvard-file-suit-against-new-ice-regulations-0708
======
eric_b
I spent 45 minutes this morning trying to get to the bottom of this whole
thing - as usual there is more nuance to this than presented.

\- For as far back as I could find, students that wanted to qualify for a
student visa to study in the US could take at most one online course per
semester. The rest of the coursework had to be in-person.

\- Starting in the spring of this year, the SEVP program (part of ICE) created
exemptions so students could continue to stay in the US even though
universities had moved entirely online. These exemptions were for Spring and
Summer and universities were awaiting the rules for Fall.

\- As of Monday, they are changing the exemptions. They are allowing any
number of online classes, but with the caveat you have to have at least one
in-person class.

\- If you are already in the US you have to leave if your university is
online-only. [This is the part that feels punitive and particularly onerous to
me]

What is interesting to me is the framing of this. The new exemptions are still
more flexible than the pre-existing student visa policy (which has been around
through both Democratic and Republican administrations as far as I can tell).
So on the one hand it's actually an improvement. On the other hand I think
most of these universities were hoping the full exemption would continue as
COVID is still very much a thing.

~~~
burkaman
It is not an improvement, it's a punishment for universities being
responsible. The outcome is worse for everyone involved, including anyone who
lives near a college.

"At least one in-person class" doesn't make any sense. Either in-person
classes are safe, and the rules can go back to pre-pandemic, or they aren't,
and forcing students and professors to attend them is dangerous and cruel.

There is no legitimate justification for this. There's no slippery slope issue
or anything, everybody accepts that these rules will go back to normal once
it's safe to do so.

~~~
DuskStar
The perspective of ICE is that there's no legitimate justification for someone
to be in the US if they're only taking online courses.

~~~
burkaman
Well, I can give one. These students fully expected to attend in-person
classes, paid for them in full, paid to get to America and get housing for
that purpose, will attend in person again as soon as it is possible.

Why can't they go home for one semester?

1) It's expensive. Flight home, rent for a US apartment they no longer occupy,
potential rent for a new apartment at home, flight back here next semester.
Where is a student supposed to get $5000+ to deal with this?

2) They need good internet access (and a laptop) wherever they're going. Not
guaranteed, and not something the university can easily provide.

3) Timezones. Many classes are synchronous and discussion-based. Not only do
you need internet good enough to support video calls, but you need to be awake
at the same time as 15 other people in however many timezones.

4) It might be illegal. What if you're from China or Iran and your school uses
G Suite for Education? Or they use Zoom, which is banned in 6 countries.
Participating in your classes would be illegal. Can the university switch
their entire infrastructure to a new platform in a couple months to support a
few students for one semester for arbitrary reasons?

5) It might be unsafe. Not all students have a safe and stable place to go.

6) It achieves nothing. Literally no benefit for anyone. If you expect these
students to come back in a semester or two, there is no point.

~~~
mithr
Also, it might not be actually possible -- or at least be quite risky for the
student. Whenever you enter the US, border agents have almost unlimited
authority as to whether you are allowed in, especially as a student. Speaking
as someone who's spent years going through this process, every time you have
to enter the states, even if all your paperwork is in order and there are zero
rational reasons for you to be denied entry, you're still worried about it.
Some border agents are friendly and let you through quickly, and some grill
you like you're trying to forcefully invade their country. I had a friend (who
was on a work visa, not even a student one) who taught English as a Second
Language at a US high school, who was told by a border agent that she's lucky
he's letting her through this time, because they shouldn't allow foreigners to
teach English at American schools.

That's not to even mention that when you're on an F-1 student visa, you can
legally renew it while remaining in the US even while the visa stamp in your
passport has already expired. But once you _leave_ the US, you have to have a
valid visa stamp in your passport in order to reenter, _even if you already
have a valid F-1 visa document approved and signed by all the right people_.
This means that, in your home country, you'll need to make an appointment,
spend hours lining up at the US embassy (if they're even open due to COVID),
then go through the interview process (which you have to repeat every single
time you renew your passport visa stamp) in order to get that stamp reissued.

Once, after already having spent years in the US on a student visa, I was
actually turned back during that interview because the particular consular
officer on duty that day decided that I needed to provide a detailed printed
transcript of my American high school experience. I had to leave the
interview, schedule a second appointment, and have the printed transcript
ready at that time. All of this is to say that not only would requiring
students to go through this process simply because their universities aren't
offering physical classes during COVID will not only cause intense stress, but
also will probably result in some students not making it back into the country
for arbitrary reasons.

~~~
3001
Yeah, its funny how people think they can understand the nuance of other
people situation by just spending 45 minutes "digging" into it.

I see this same thing everywhere. From race issues to out of touch boomer tech
managers and PM's.

------
ben7799
It's incredibly unfair for the the administration to target international
students like this.

However Harvard and MIT aren't all about caring about their international
students here. They are also thinking heavily about the money they might be
losing. International students usually pay a much higher effective tuition
rate. The higher the % of international students the school takes in the more
money they take in. If these schools had to replace international students
with domestic ones (even if they could) they wouldn't be able to get away with
selecting only the highest paying students.

I'm from Boston, we have an incredibly high number of international students,
and a lot of the interest in keeping them is about getting their money.

The Boston Globe estimates they are worth $3.6 billion dollars to the area...
lots of money, lots of tuition, lots of apartment rentals, lots of bar &
restaurant revenue.

~~~
vowelless
Yea but they are also afraid of loosing out on a generation of professors,
post docs, academics, value generators, “job creators”.

It is very risky to cut out a generation of top students because the value is
not just to the local Boston economy, but nationally. It’s not just cheap
labor. It’s apprenticeship by the smartest in the world who will pay dividends
for not only our lives but for generations.

I came as a student. I pay 6 figures in taxes. Some of my intl friends pay 7
figures and employ hundreds. I’ll have kids here that will generate enough
value to do that as well.

Right now, there is a significant risk that a lot of economic value is going
to be lost due to these immigration policies. That is not good for america.

It’s like a sports team: you have the ability to draft the top players from
around the world for cheap. Why would you decide to boycott the draft itself
and let the competitors (India, China) take those players? Especially some
players that you have already trained (graduated students, post docs)

~~~
gruez
>It’s like a sports team: you have the ability to draft the top players from
around the world for cheap. Why would you decide to boycott the draft itself
and let the competitors (India, China) take those players? Especially some
players that you have already trained (graduated students, post docs)

You're thinking about it from the wrong perspective. The people who are anti-
immigration are anti-immigration because they personally might be negatively
impacted (in terms of losing jobs or getting lower wages), even if it means
the country as a whole is better off. Seeing the US GDP grow 30% faster is
little consolation to you when you've lost your job to immigrants (or at
least, you thought that you did). Going back to the sports team analogy, it'd
be great if your team drafted the best international players and won, but what
if that resulted in you getting kicked off the team, or sidelined most of the
season?

~~~
vowelless
If that’s the case, then why not have teams draft from the region they
represent? For example, maybe the Patriots should not have had a foreign
Michigander as their QB for 20 years, that spot could have been given to some
up and coming Boston College graduate.

To address your point a bit more directly: can you show me studies where
native born Americans have lost jobs to immigrants in the US? I know that many
jobs got moved to China and Mexico, but that’s not what I am wondering about.

~~~
jimmydddd
It's not just lost jobs. It's also depressed wages.

~~~
sangnoir
Immigrants are overrepresented when it comes to founding companies. They are
better at _creating_ jobs compared to their non-immigrant counterparts.

------
chvid
This link was posted here yesterday:

[https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-
stu...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-students-in-
the-us-by-country-of-origin/)

370.000 students from China, 200.000 from India, 52.000 from South Korea.

This policy change affects hundreds of thousands students and must generate a
massive loss in economic terms.

~~~
mc32
The institutions are there primarily to educate our workforce. There are
thousands of locally deserving students who don’t have opportunity, either
went to wrong schools or don’t know how to navigate the system that’s geared
toward connections or wealth.

These institutions could fill their student bodies with thousands upon
thousands of our own students who get overlooked.

On the other hand they’ve grown used to foreign money filling their coffers.

~~~
cauthon
I got into an Ivy on merit. White male, not legacy, not an athlete, not rich.
Just good grades, good SAT score, and luck. I promise you the _vast_ majority
of students I met who didn’t deserve to be at my school (academically
speaking) were domestic legacies or athletes.

Can’t imagine my undergrad, first job out, or grad school without the many
international students I made friends and worked with. Part of educating a
successful workforce is teaching us how to work and collaborate with people
from other backgrounds. Hard to do that if everyone’s from Newton or
Westchester

~~~
mc32
I agree. We have tons of kids in the San Joaquin Valley , Montana plains,
Eastern Washington, inner LA, etc who should have a chance... but they don’t
bring the same money.

~~~
cauthon
It's complicated. The kids whose parents pay for full tuition (or for a new
building) subsidize the cost of attendance for the rest of us. I definitely
couldn't have afforded to go without my financial aid package.

And that's supposedly part of the value proposition of elite schools - mix
wealthy and connected students with bright students with ideas.

There's plenty of international students on financial aid too, I think it's
doing them a disservice to say they're only being admitted for the revenue.
Maybe at larger public institutions with tens of thousands of students, but I
don't think that's generally the case at the smaller elite schools we're
talking about

------
credit_guy
The actual complaint is here:

[http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708...](http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708-Harvard-
MIT-Complaint-Injunctive-Relief.pdf)

My very short summary:

\- there is a rule in place whereby international students who don't take most
classes in person will lose their visa status

\- this rule was suspended by ICE on March 13 for the duration of the Covid19
emergency

\- ICE now has changed their mind for the Fall semester

\- the core part of the complaint is in paragraph 10. It has 2 parts: the ICE
u-turn is "arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion", and it did
not follow the Administrative Procedure Act.

Now, IANAL, but here's my take: for the first part of the complaint, it's very
likely ICE will be able to produce some "analysis" so they can claim their
decision was not arbitrary and capricious, but rather made after careful
consideration. The second part of the complaint has probably better odds of
success. If Harvard and MIT can pinpoint the exact part of the Administrative
Procedure Act that ICE did not follow, a judge could issue the injunction.
Just recently the Supreme Court overturned Trump administration's decision to
revoke DACA based on this Administrative Procedure Act.

In the end though, even if this injunction is issued, it may take months, and
it may arrive too late to be of any help for the international students who
will lose their visa.

It would be fantastic though if someone with legal expertise were to opine on
this in this forum.

~~~
btown
Not a lawyer, but I think the recent Supreme Court decision on DACA -
[https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-587_5ifl.pdf)
\- is telling:

    
    
        To be clear, DHS was not required to do any of this or to
        “consider all policy alternatives in reaching [its] decision.”
        State Farm, 463 U. S., at 51. Agencies are not compelled to
        explore “every alternative device and thought conceivable
        by the mind of man.” Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp.
        v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519,
        551 (1978). But, because DHS was “not writing on a blank
        slate,” post, at 22, n. 14 (opinion of THOMAS, J.), it was required
        to assess whether there were reliance interests, determine
        whether they were significant, and weigh any such
        interests against competing policy concerns.
    
    

The issue of reliance, I think, is important here - did ICE actually
internally discuss the extent to which international students and their
families were _relying_ on the _previous_ guidance, and did they actually do
any kind of analysis that the _benefit_ to society and economy would outweigh
those reliance interests, even for non-citizens? Given that societal benefits
are practically nonexistent and that many university systems economically rely
on continuity of their matriculated student bodies, particularly international
students paying non-subsidized tuition, it seems unlikely that such an
analysis was done in good faith.

~~~
jkulubya
Yeah, we have a concept in common law called legitimate expectation that is
quite similar to the point you're getting at. Don't know about the U.S.

Having recently been on the right side of a judicial challenge, I must say
that in my non-lawyer view, it is quite a powerful check on a decision-maker's
discretion.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimate_expectation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimate_expectation)

------
montenegrohugo
Here's the email I got from Faculty this morning:

 _Dear members of the FAS community,

Shortly after Monday’s announcement about our plans for the fall semester, we
learned that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced new
regulations that imperil the lives and academic progress of our international
students and scholars. These new guidelines directly undermine the careful
planning and approach we have taken for fall, specifically our plans to
deliver all graduate and undergraduate instruction online. This plan was put
forth to reconcile the health and safety needs of our community and the
vitality of our academic mission, including accounting for the needs of our
diverse, global community of students and scholars who face a host of
limitations and complications brought about by the pandemic. This reckless
reversal by ICE hurts our students and it hurts us as an institution. The FAS
is an international community and that is a source of pride and inspiration.
That we bring together the voices and perspectives of some of the brightest
minds from across the world is fundamental to our intellectual strength and
ambitions and must be protected.

While there is still much we don’t know, we are working quickly to respond to
the needs of our international students and scholars impacted by this news. To
that end, early this morning, President Bacow announced that Harvard, together
with MIT, has filed pleadings in the US District Court in Boston to seek a
temporary restraining order against the enforcement of this order. In doing
so, we continue to be guided by our core principles to protect our academic
enterprise and preserve access and affordability for all our students. The new
ICE order is a direct threat to that institutional imperative. But we are
committed to doing all we can to enable our students and scholars to continue
their studies without further disruption to their lives and academic progress
in an already uncertain and challenging time.

Many of you have reached out to express your concern about these new
regulations and what they will mean for our students. I share your deep
distress over this new order, and I assure you that the FAS and the University
are working tirelessly to fight on behalf of our international students and
scholars. We will explore all avenues and exhaust all options to chart a path
forward that protects their place as valued members of the FAS community.

Sincerely,

Claudine_

It's the most strongly worded email I've ever seen from Harvard. It seems like
they believe that the Trump Administration is trying to manipulate them into
opening prematurely, and that they are very cognizant of this.

~~~
p0llard
> It seems like they believe that the Trump Administration is trying to
> manipulate them into opening prematurely, and that they are very cognizant
> of this.

You're right, and the court filing addresses this explicitly; see 75) in
[http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708...](http://orgchart.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/20200708-Harvard-
MIT-Complaint-Injunctive-Relief.pdf)

~~~
deegles
Oh it gets worse, he's threatening to cut federal funding to schools that
don't reopen: [https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-
reope...](https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/08/trump-schools-reopening-
federal-funding-352311)

~~~
hef19898
Just imagine, SCOTUS decided that limiting access to voting places is OK
during COVID. This means that COVID can legally be used to restrict voting an,
presumably, do all kind of wierd things come November.

A smart would-be dictator would now use COVID as strategy to win reelection or
post-pone the election. Ideally in a way that doesn't result in public uproar.
Instead Trump still tries to ignore COVID into oblivion.

But as Napoleon said, don't interupt your enemy when he's hurting himself.

~~~
mindslight
Covid could have been used to win reelection by simply accepting that it was a
problem and leading everyone through the challenging time. The wartime
president boost. Something else is going on here, like foreign interference (I
hadn't bought into this theory before Covid) or neurodegenerative disease.

------
ISL
This appears to be an appropriate response, rather than hacking around the
edict by creating pro-forma trivial in-person classes.

~~~
Aunche
I think a trivial in-person classes may be an intentional loophole. It stops
online-only universities from being a gateway to an easy long-term Visa.

~~~
addicted
There is no such thing as an easy long term visa for these schools to be a
gateway for.

~~~
Aunche
I meant longer term visas rather than semipermanent visas. You could pay a few
thousand a year for an online college to stay in the US wherever you want. I'm
not sure why anyone would want to do that, but it's probably easier to work
under the table this way when you don't have to worry about being deported.

------
Alex3917
During the Vietnam war, colleges stopped grading so that it was impossible for
anyone to fail out and get drafted. Why can't these colleges just create in-
person classes that meet once a semester with optional attendance?

~~~
UncleMeat
They could try.

But this completely misunderstands how scary it is to be trying to follow the
rules as somebody on a visa. "Let me try this weird loophole and hope that no
agent comes to me and says 'get out of the country by the end of the week' for
violating the spirit of the law" is not a compelling option.

US Immigration is already a Kafkaesque nightmare of confusion and uncertainty.
Creating the equivalent of a green card marriage in an almost completely
transparent and obvious manner isn't going to put people at ease.

------
viscountchocula
Serious question: can the schools just have a required course that's like,
walk around campus for an hour with a mask and describe your feelings?
Pass/fail, 1 credit.

~~~
dharmab
Normally, international students cannot take more than 3 credits of online
classes to keep their visas. This rule was temporarily suspended in March, but
is being reverted by ICE while the schools are not ready to fully reopen.

~~~
yoden
No it's not. They're still allowing an exception that allows any number of
online classes. They're just requiring at least one in-person credit, and for
the university to say it is at least partially open.

------
sytelus
The lawsuit will be strong if they say online classes are temporary in order
to not to violate governor order and will be in-person as soon as governor
allows. I don’t see any reason ICE can argue against that.

------
jrk
Lots of the comments are talking about this as an MIT/Harvard issue. To be
clear, MIT and Harvard are the first to file suit, but this radical policy by
ICE dramatically affects every college and university, and every international
student, in the country. And the suit seeks to strike down the policy
altogether, not get an exemption for these two schools.

This is not about Harvard and MIT at all, except insofar as they wound up
being the ones with the position and deep pockets to most quickly file a
strong suit to stop it.

------
rexreed
Higher education is due for a massive price correction. The cost of education
has outstripped market ability and the movement to online while still asking
top dollar tuition is going to make those education institutions increasingly
pressured. Going online increases international ability to compete for
students as well as professors, and this will also increase pressure on
tuition pricing.

Higher ed tuition pricing is bound for a massive correction.

------
Consultant32452
I think this is a first step in kicking out Chinese students. If you're from
France, South Korea, Nigeria, etc. you'll be invited back soon enough. This is
not a judgement on that plan, just a prediction.

~~~
oblio
Why do you think that?

~~~
Consultant32452
There has been multiple stories in the news recently about crackdowns on
Chinese "spies" in the universities. I'm using the word spy loosely there,
that's not the word that has been in the news. They talk about it more in the
sense of secretly getting funding from China and not claiming it or whatever.
My perception is that the belief is that this is a major avenue through which
US tech is "stolen".

The administration recently hinted that they will be blocking Chinese apps
such as TikTok from being used in the US.

The administration also hinted at breaking the currency peg to the dollar.

A cold war is ongoing.

------
bg24
Right decision and all universities should follow suit to help the students.

Imagine us being students and having to go through the pain, while Covid is
all over the map.

------
sushshshsh
Imagine playing politics over people's education and location of current
residence.

What a world.

------
beepboopbeep
I firmly believe this is being done to damage the reputation of the USA as an
immigrant friendly country in order to induce a major brain drain while also
stemming the flow of Chinese students away from the mainland.

~~~
exolymph
> in order to induce a major brain drain

What is the motivation for desiring this, in your view?

------
sqrt
Northeastern University (in Boston) has announced that they're joining MIT and
Harvard's lawsuit:
[https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297](https://twitter.com/Northeastern/status/1280961230233100297)

------
GhostVII
It sounds like these ICE regulations are not new, they are just removing some
temporary exemptions they put in to place due to COVID. So the suit is against
the removal of this exemption, there are no new restrictions in place that did
not exist before COVID.

------
hello_1234
This is cruel and wicked. Hopefully the courts stop this madness.

------
quantum_state
It looks like ICE has no better things to do in this pandemic...

------
nocitrek
My stance is typically anti-immigration, but I do not support this decision of
ICE. I am likely missing big chunk of the story, but could anyone explain the
motives behind ICE decision? (without blind hateful virtue-signaling please)

~~~
jhpriestley
it's weird, this administration has been almost vindictive against some
groups, like non white asylum seekers, non white students, non white Puerto
Ricans, non white athletes, and non white protesters, but it is very
supportive of other groups like white protesters, white farmers, white
business owners ... where is the common thread? It's a complete mystery and
impossible to figure out.

~~~
WillPostForFood
>non white students

I didn't see the exemption for white students in this. Because there isn't
one?

~~~
hef19898
It targets a group, foreign students, that is mostly non-white. I guess some
colleteral amage is OK when it makes discrimination a little less obvious.

~~~
Konnstann
"White" people are a minority worldwide, any blanket foreign policy will
disproportionately target non-white people.

------
bawana
I suppose MIT and HArvard could allow students on campus but locked into their
dorm rooms. They could have the bathroom police unlock doors individually so
the kids could take showers, etc. Then they could have the cafeteria deliver
meals the same way prisoners are fed in their cells. Trump could extend this
edict to the workplace as well - any VISA holders working remotely get
deported. Somewhere in the mists of history I remember isolationism not
working out too well for us. I wonder why we are going back there?

------
stefap2
Regardless of the regulation. What is the difference of being in the US or
anywhere else if you can't go on campus and only work /study from home. The
quality of learning is low in both cases.

~~~
letmeinhere
For one, it's unreasonable to assume that all of these students have home
environments conducive to do high-def teleconferencing on American time zones.

~~~
syshum
Would that not also apply to domestic students, even the international
students as America has very very spotty broadband access even in cities one
section may have great service and go 2 streets over and you get crap...

I know locally that has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the local
schools, dealing with students that did not have good internet.

~~~
3001
Very spotty is different from non-existent.

------
ghufran_syed
I'd hate to be "forced" to return to my home country, but why can't these
students just study online back in their own country, then come back for in-
person classes sometime next year once covid is under control?

The reason for excluding all-online classes is that historically it's been
associated with much greater immigration fraud.

If this really becomes a big issue for students, it's pretty trivial for the
universities to turn their online classes into "hybrid" classes that require
people to physically come to campus in a safe way - e.g. "residency course
requirement: at some point in the week, every week you must come into the
university and sign the attendance log website from a device logged into the
campus wifi" .

------
umanwizard
I am skeptical of shutdowns as a policy, and if I worked in a strategic role
at a university, I would push for reopening in person.

However, the administration using federal visa policy as a bludgeon to get
universities to implement their preferred policies (even policies that I
personally agree with) makes me really uneasy.

------
coreai
The decision of ICE essentially was to not change anything. A student on F1 is
only permitted to take certain number of online classes and must maintain his
status with in person classes. The change to online classes means this affects
ones status and the ICE notice meant they will not make any changes to these
rules even in this situation. What people are saying is that this affects ones
work status if he leaves the US post study but ideally a student is a student
not seeking work or immigration into the US especially given that the H1B is
suspended and OPT is not work it’s training. If the university says class is
online then it means there is no reason for a student to live in the US.
People confuse students with long term immigration even if that maybe the
intention of the student. They are just students who are paying tuition and
living in the US as far as anyone is concerned.

~~~
foepys
Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US
afterwards? I was always under impression that this was the main goal of those
programs. Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in
your country, and hope for them stay and contribute to the economy.

~~~
linuxftw
> Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US
> afterwards?

I'd say the average American does not hope this, no. Foreign students are
driving up the cost of tuition as they're usually quite wealthy and displace
seats for underprivileged Americans, especially in state-run schools.

I don't know why someone would come to the US to study other than the hopes of
immigrating. There are better schools in Europe and elsewhere that are much
cheaper or even free.

On the off chance we _actually_ face some sort of shortage of critical skills,
there are other visas for that.

~~~
hello_1234
That's not true. Almost all state universities charge a much higher tuition
fee to foreign and out-of-state students (sometimes two to three times
higher). That higher fee is used to subsidize the fee of in-state students.
Sorry to be crass, but please do some research before spewing your bullshit
online.

~~~
linuxftw
> That higher fee is used to subsidize the fee of in-state students

An uncited, flimsy excuse. Most universities could function just fine without
out of state students, but that might result in a cutback of some of the
wasteful spending these institutions create.

In any case, the seats are a finite quantity. Most public universities in the
US have competitive admissions. Guess who's not getting admitted in place of
students on visas? That's right, the most underprivileged parts of our
society, which is why I said _seats_.

------
swiley
Undoing the mess that was H1B was probably a good thing (provided an
alternative path for professionals to immigrate without forcing them into
indentured servitude becomes available) but this just seems stupid.

The only good thing about is that it could change the way universities think
about tuition? I don’t even understand the argument for why the students are
being sent home. It spreads the virus around (people crossing borders is
pretty bad for that) and if they were allowed here in the first place why are
they being sent home now?

------
vturner
MIT and Harvard being rather dishonest here. Seems like this is reverting back
to what was before?

"Due to COVID-19, SEVP instituted a temporary exemption regarding online
courses for the spring and summer semesters. This policy permitted
nonimmigrant students to take more online courses than normally permitted by
federal regulation to maintain their nonimmigrant status during the COVID-19
emergency."

~~~
emiliobumachar
I don't think they're being dishonest. This is indeed reverting back to what
was before. The thing is, students who normally study onsite are still
studying remotely due to the pandemic. The original law presumably was
targeted at permanently remote classes. One can of course argue whether the
exception is still reasonable, xamuel made a fair case that it's not. But the
opposite case really does not seem dishonest.

------
xamuel
I'm sure this will be super unpopular, but I think universities are on the
wrong side here.

First: If the classes are online anyway, then there's no reason students need
to be on U.S. soil to take them. If the schools have policies requiring the
students to be on U.S. soil, the schools should waive those policies.

Second: It's subjective whether COVID is still an "emergency". We've been
locked down for many months now, there is nothing "emergent" about the
situation any more. When your car crashes, that's an emergency. Three months
later when you're having trouble getting to work because of your car being
wrecked, that is no longer an emergency. It still sucks, but it isn't an
emergency any more at that point.

Granted, though, it would have been better if ICE had given the schools more
advance notice.

~~~
p0llard
One big issue here is that F-1 students must maintain residency in order to be
eligible for OPT.

This is secondary to the fact that if you're a PhD student on an F-1, you
literally live in the US; you aren't just popping over for a few weeks now and
then. The current situation basically forces people who have lived in the US
for nearly 10 years to suddenly leave the country.

~~~
xamuel
Thanks for pointing out Optional Practical Training (OPT), that's a good
point. That might be a good thing for the feds to waive (once things go back
to normal).

On the second point, usually PhD students with that much seniority aren't
taking a lot of regular classes anyway; by 10 years, you should definitely be
post-candidacy. By that point you should be working on your dissertation and
"classes" should mostly consist of 1-on-1s with your advisor.

~~~
p0llard
> by 10 years, you should definitely be post-candidacy.

Yes sure, 10 years was perhaps a stretch. But anyone who has lived in the US
pretty much continuously for 5 or 6 years (undergrad plus the first couple of
years of grad school, or possibly at the end of an MIT MEng, which is often
4+2) is likely as integrated as they're ever going to be at that point.

5 years or 10 years doesn't really make that much of a difference: it's still
going to have a huge impact on students who consider the US their home.

~~~
xamuel
These students should not be considering the college their longterm home
anyway. They aren't supposed to be putting down roots. They are students. It's
supposed to be a temporary thing where you earn the degree and then move on to
the next chapter of your life.

------
lgleason
I'm sure this will be downvoted into oblivion, but short of these regulations
being illegal they are actually in the national interest IMHO. From a national
security standpoint the universities have been a big trojan horse. At many
state schools international students are also nothing but large cash cows and
a source for cheap research labor. For years I was a pro-education person, but
most of the US institutions have been hijacked by political activists who have
significantly watered down the curriculums. We need a massive reset of the
entire system and significantly limiting foreign students needs to be part of
that.

~~~
gnulinux
> I was a pro-education person

I must say: I'm genuinely surprised reading this sentence in HN. It's very
disappointing.

~~~
lgleason
Let me clarify this. I'm a pro-enlightenment education, which is pro-science.
But, todays system has become a postmodernist indoctrination mill which is
anti-science. Unfortunately, while public education, stressing university
education etc. sounded great in theory, and I supported that for years,
looking at the results of that effort, the academic standards have gone down.
Thus, time to look into doing something different because todays system is no
longer effective and in some aspects could be called a net negative.

