Obviously. The thing about America right now is that there's no one city or even state that is representative of the country. The country is experiencing a cultural and political deadlock which can sort of be generalized to a divide between the coasts and the south. If you live in Cambridge or SV or NYC you get angered by issues presented in the OP, why shouldn't this brilliant student be allowed into the country? That's not my America.

Then immediately someone responds that where we live is not representative of America. Though let me remind you, if you believe the "real" America is the people in Alabama or the bureaucrats creating asinine policies that keep out brilliant foreign students, think about how much worse things would be without those of us in places like Cambridge to actually speak up and vote for candidates like Elizabeth Warren and say we don't like the way the other side is trying to run the country.

At Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan the story is pretty similar, and we aren't exactly the best known college worldwide.