
U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas - OminousWeapons
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-14/harvard-and-u-s-make-deal-on-foreign-student-visas
======
throwawaygh
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.

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

~~~
throwawaygh
_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 :) )

~~~
jacquesm
But the rest of HN can see italics just fine. Don't use caps. It is annoying.

------
ngngngng
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.

~~~
generationP
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
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.

~~~
parsimo2010
> I'm sure the military is similar.

Ironically, Roll Call is a formal concept in the military and rarely used
after training. But the concept of accountability certainly exists.

This varies by country, branch of service, and job, but it’s fairly common for
young airmen (enlisted troops) in the USAF to be docked pay after showing up
late to work a few times. The punishment usually goes something like a stern
warning-> light paperwork-> paperwork in your permanent file and formal
counseling. The next step is non-judicial punishment (named so because your
only option is to accept the harsh punishment or be court martialed), which
could mean any combination of confinement, demotion, forfeiture of pay, or
several other things. The only things left after that are being discharged or
sent to prison. And that’s for being late to work. If you backtalk the wrong
person you could be demoted with no warning.

And I know the Air Force Academy takes attendance every class because I had
to. The registrar would occasionally audit the attendance system and notify
the department chairs of instructors that didn’t log their attendance.

~~~
jki275
Muster is taken every day, every watch, in the Navy at least. It's a formal
process with a formal report that is submitted to the ship's admin department,
and then they submit a muster report up to the ship's immediate superior.

It's taken very seriously.

------
LordFast
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.

~~~
RobRivera
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
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.

~~~
karmelapple
Ranked Choice Voting, which is now the law for all elections in the state of
Maine except the Presidency, is a way to help ensure that the winning
candidate has been chosen by at least 50% of voters, even if the winning
candidate wasn’t the first choice for all voters.

Adopting RCV seems to me like one of the best ways we can improve the health
of the US’s democracy going forward.

Any voters Massachusetts can vote this November to have RCV statewide, just
like Maine, from local elections up to the US House and Senate elections. I’ve
volunteered with the group [1] helping Massachusetts join Maine in leading the
way.

[1] [https://voterchoice2020.org/](https://voterchoice2020.org/)

~~~
ScottBurson
RCV is an improvement on FPTP -- almost anything would be! -- but Approval
Voting is even better. It is easier to implement (the ballot doesn't change at
all, just the way it's counted), simpler for voters to understand (you just
vote for every candidate you approve of), much less susceptible to strategic
voting and not at all to strategic candidate selection, and therefore much
less likely to return an anomalous result.

[http://www.electionscience.org](http://www.electionscience.org)

------
qwerty456127
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.

~~~
totalZero
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.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
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.

~~~
totalZero
Only a small fraction of MIT's revenue comes from tuition.

[https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html](https://web.mit.edu/facts/financial.html)

------
psds2
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.

------
jxm262
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

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

~~~
jxm262
awesome, thanks for the info :)

------
ebg13
> _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
It probably something like " these foreign students bring billions of dollars
to US". We'd really like to keep these customers.

~~~
ebg13
But how is that striking "a deal"? That doesn't sound like giving something to
get something.

~~~
mav3rick
When the landlord who votes for trump doesn't get his rent from University
students...it means something

------
qserasera
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
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.

~~~
qserasera
EDIT

~~~
BeetleB
He/she explicitly said he/she doesn't disagree with you. Why are you asking
this question?

------
supernova87a
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
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.

~~~
umanwizard
> 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.

~~~
tomp
Why outdated? Coronavirus stimulus pckage became law on 27th March in both the
US and Germany (Europe’s model democracy). So it’s arguably a good thing,
consensual things happen quickly, controversial things take a long time.

~~~
jessaustin
The laws may have passed on the same date, but they were not the same laws. In
functioning democracies, laws passed in response to health and economic
emergencies have something to do with health and economics. In USA, Congress
just unanimously (well, except for Thomas Massie) gave rich people trillions
of dollars.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
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.

------
atonse
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_zeros
> 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.

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

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

Don't get me wrong but do you always look at historical numbers to predict the
future?

~~~
genericone
I think you are being downvoted because... well, exactly what other methods
did you have in mind? Using trend data to predict future data seems pretty
run-of-the-mill to me.

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

~~~
gnulinux
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.

~~~
gwright
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.

~~~
gnulinux
(AINAL) No I don't think you're correct, which is what I (and others) were
trying to explain. Which is also why MIT and Harvard (and many other
universities) sued ICE. Here, copy paste from another comment:

> 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...](https://www.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/sevp_filing.pdf)

What you're missing is universities are making their classes online not
because they're offering online education, but because _they 're forced to do
so_ in order to protect students and faculty ( _including_ F1 students) from a
pandemic. F1 visa specifically gives students right to protect themselves from
such risks.

If universities switched to remote education e.g. to cut cost or to experiment
with online education methods, then you'd be right. But the argument here is
that universities do this because students and faculty face irreparable damage
or death, and therefore there is no basis to deport to F1 students.

~~~
gwright
I tend to agree with you but I don't think your argument contradicts my
statement. You are basically arguing that the health emergency still exists
and the exemption should remain. I think that is a defensible argument, but
that doesn't mean that the underlying logic (you don't need a visa to take an
online course load) is invalid. If the health argument went away you would
still be left with that underlying logic.

~~~
gnulinux
Yes, I think we agree.

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

------
vmh1928
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.

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

~~~
RHSeeger
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?

~~~
stu2b50
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.

~~~
totalZero
I have been on the fence about this policy, for the following reason.

On the one hand, it seems overtly xenophobic and anti-intellectual. On the
other hand, I don't see why an international student needs to be in the United
States in order to participate exclusively in online classes.

Even if the issue is a lack of human welfare (eg unsafe neighborhood) or
necessary infrastructure (eg slow/inconsistent internet) back home, an
international student could live somewhere else and probably save a ton of
money in the process.

What am I missing?

~~~
yangminded
Time zones a big factor. Note that this is about online classes (live), not a
MOOC.

I wouldn't want to expect a student in Sydney to stay awake at 3AM to follow a
lecture at Harvard at 1PM.

The same is true for office hours with professors and TAs. You have a huge
disadvantage in getting information if you are in a bad time zone.

------
rdiddly
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
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.

~~~
qtplatypus
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.

------
maddyboo
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.”

~~~
balls187
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.

~~~
amf12
> 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.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Attendance is tracked at any university with students that receive federal
aid... So most of them.

~~~
filoleg
This is so obviously wrong. Source: I went to a public state school less than
10 years ago and I (along with many other students) received federal aid.

90% of the classes I took didn't require attendance, and the ones that did
were mostly general studies courses for freshmen (like basic lab sciences or
language classes). None of the major-related courses required attendance or
had it as a component of the final grade (which in my case would be maths and
CS classes). Obviously, you still had to attend midterms and final exams. And
each of those classes would have a couple of prodigies who would attend zero
lectures and still end up doing very well in the class (with many more who
attempted that and failed massively, but still).

The only way of legitimately interpreting the meaning of your reply is that
universities receiving federal aid are required to submit the list of students
registered for each course. That has nothing to do with attendance though.

------
ardit33
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)

~~~
ben7799
#2 - This was just a big distraction to get the ADD media to forget about
Russian bounties on US troops.

~~~
briandear
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-...](https://fair.org/home/in-russian-bounty-story-evidence-free-claims-
from-nameless-spies-became-fact-overnight/)

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.

~~~
vinay427
Do you not see a problem with media outlets requiring sources name themselves
when speaking out against someone in a position of power? I'd much prefer the
current situation of corroborating a scandal through what is often multiple
sources in multiple publications if the alternative is not hearing about
scandals that do exist.

------
tibbydudeza
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
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.

------
ben7799
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
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
> _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.

------
yingw787
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.

------
jimbob45
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.

~~~
benrbray
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.

~~~
refurb
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.

