Hacker News Reader

Comment by coreai | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

> 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.

Even if it's only short term for the duration of their studies, it seems quite unfair to expect students who have setup in the US to return back to their home country for a term or two when they might well then have to come back to the US again the following year.

Yes, especially if you consider that this students spend quite a considerable amount of money in the US.

My experience has been that the students who are there for highschool 2.0 spend the most and many foreign students need to find work to make ends meet. They are typically more motivated and focused than local students, spend less time going out (tho travel more) and far more on studies. This is also typical of continuing edu students.

That is irresponsible. For studying in the U.S., students have to rent an apartment, purchase necessities and do lots of other preparations. If they are not allowed to stay in the U.S. anymore, who would cover the loss for them?

Not if all the education is being delivered online.

Things are not so cut and dry. Rent in the college town my university is located in is high and people have to sign year-long leases the year before they actually occupy the apartment due to high demand. Forcing students to travel home places unnecessary hardship on them if they've already signed an expensive lease.

If they're non-citizens what does it matter to them if they break the lease?

What about the citizens that this impacts? You know, the people offering up apartments for rent.

Would you like to lose money because the US Government decided to kick out students for no good reason?

They will lose their security deposit, at minimum.

Some people have this thing called morale.

Taking a decision to not change anything when everything has changed is not a passive act.

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.

Absolutely not. Maybe the US should, but according to the rules, a student visa is "nonimmigrant intent" and expressing the desire to stay in the US after your studies are over may in fact be grounds for denial of a visa because they may think you're going to overstay.

F1 is a "non-immigration" visa - meaning that it is explicitly designed so that the students do not stay after finishing the studies. There are "dual intent" visas which are designed with the intent of possibly staying, such as H1B. But technically, expressing intent to stay can be a reason to be denied F1 visa.

> Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country

That may be true, but that's not what F1 is made for, by design.

Many of these students pay the bills of the department as graduate only students, and for the students it's a jump point to the US job market. Both enjoy the benefits of a misaligned program.

Depends on the administration, which is really a problem if you want to consistently attract talent. Seems like an opportunity for Trump to ostensibly change nothing while taking what looks like a hard-line on immigration.

There's an added benefit to Trump of punishing universities for their continued pushback against much of his goals (e.g. Title IX lawsuits, harboring undocumented people/not complying with ICE).

That used to be the case but I'm not so sure the current regime is down for that - at least they're not acting like it.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

Even if "it's only classes", there are things called time zones; if you're in Europe or Asia then it would fucking suck to have to get up everyday in the middle of the night to take classes.

This ignores the enormous logistical difficulties associated with, say, timezones. If my online classes are at 2 AM but the grocery store is only open from 9-5, I am going to be exhausted all semester.

There was previously an exemption put in place, they're suspending it.

It is not this simple. Some international students are on a significant financial aid and rely on the resources provided to them in the U.S, be it college housing and dining or else...

International students generally do not qualify for financial aid from US schools.

I don't believe they made claim about the aid coming from the school. More often it's family savings or their own country providing the assistance.

What is the point of spending time and money to send these students home?

And that is the wrong decision at this time.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com