6 ms·

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 mot

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)

lordleft 6y ago
I really do think this is a cynical ploy to induce universities to open up more aggressively than they would like. That is the only reasoning I can come up with.
- _jal 6y ago
  Yes, it is a classic wedge. Try to force your opponents into an unpleasant choice, either of which is OK with you. Have to hand it to the anti-freedom of movement/association folks - this was a fairly clever one.
- magicnubs 6y ago
  What's the end game in this scenario? It feels like political suicide if it causes coronavirus deaths to spike even more before November, as people already don't care for how the administration has handled it. Although, since it's mostly young people, maybe cases would spike, but deaths wouldn't, making the virus seem less deadly. But maybe deaths are expected to spike either way, so better to both increase cases (with relatively fewer deaths making it seem less deadly, as mentioned above) and also spur the economy somewhat? Or maybe it's pure and simply just a way to energize the base by "scoring a point against the other team", as it is seen as bringing defiant liberal institutions to heel?
  - magicnubs 6y ago
    (continued as I accidently submitted my comment too early) Or is it simply about making it seem like things have returned to normal? "See business are reopening, schools are reopening, the world is back to the way it was".
    - lordleft 6y ago
      I honestly don't know...it seems the majority of Americans are alive to the dangers of COVID and believe we aren't doing enough, and Trump's approval ratings are plummeting, so this doesn't make sense to me -- but his reaction doesn't have to be rational, it could be a desperate attempt to do exactly what you said, and cultivate the appearance of things being fine.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        Trump just believes in stuff. It doesn’t need to make sense. “It’ll go away by Easter”. Trump probably believes that if we all just go back to normal that we will be fine and he will be a hero because that’s how his mind works. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense.
      - pchristensen 6y ago
        "the majority of Americans are alive to the dangers of COVID and believe we aren't doing enough" Possibly a majority, but nowhere near all.
    - 121789 6y ago
      I think there are many interpretations that are all probably a little true Generous interpretation: if classes are primarily online, international students do not have a reason to reside in the US except for easier access to the labor market. With 20M Americans out of work, the administration is prioritizing citizens for first access to the labor market. Skeptical interpretation: This is another anti-immigrant change that uses COVID as a scapegoat for racist/nativist policy. I generally interpret most of the administration's moves as political gambles. Given current trends in deaths, they may be hoping that daily deaths are near zero with the country mostly opened back up by October. That seems like the only path to reelection given the current gap in approval ratings between the two candidates.
      - kec 6y ago
        F-1 students don't have access to the labor market outside of OPT which is limited and subject to government approval.
sheeshkebab 6y ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-rules-on-foreign-students-put-universitiesin-dilemma-11594149280 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-rules-on-foreign-studen... If understand the rules have always been there (on limit for online classes)
- apcragg 6y ago
  The rules have always been there, but as the filing mentions, ICE said in March that the rule would be suspended for the duration of the emergency. They are now going-back on that statement which given the timing of the announcement is causing chaos.
  - greggeter 6y ago
    Table 1 on this site suggests deaths are way down and maybe this doesn't fit CDC's definition of pandemic (emergency) anymore? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm And certainly excess deaths are trending down quite rapidly, per chart halfway down this page: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm If I were concerned about C-19 morbidity, I'd be encouraged by these numbers. I don't watch the news. Is the media also highlighting this? We'll see what things look like at the end of July.
dathinab 6y ago
Just guessing, but the place most foreign students come from is China. There have been multiple claims that China is using oversees students to steal knowledge or that University have become to dependent on the money from Chinese students and cooperations. Be aware that I'm just saying such claims did happen not that they are true. The fact that many countries also doesn't want to open border to the US again for now might also play a role.
- somurzakov 6y ago
  I think you got it backwards. Chinese students are not stealing the knowledge, they are creating the knowledge. They do research, the hard work and publish papers. A lot of them want to stay here, but anti-immigration policies leave them with no other choice other than go back to their home countries and work for CCP. It almost looks like Trump is forcing top students to leave US and bring their knowledge back to China to benefit CCP.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Works kind of imilar in Germany. Stay for your studies, which are basically free for everyone who enrolled at a university. Be forced to leave if earn under a certain threshold. That threshold was roughly double of my first salary right after graduation, and I was on the higher end of my semester. Having applied this threshold to my semester, we would have all been forced to leave. Kind of cracy, if you ask me.
  - dathinab 6y ago
    > I think you got it backwards. Chinese students are not stealing the knowledge [..] No this are not thinks I believe. This are claims which came up one different articles in the recent year(s) on hackernews and are things you might hear from people which are strongly anti-foreigen students or people like Trump.
_jal 6y ago
> blind hateful virtue-signaling please So your signaling behavior is fine, but that from others is blind and hateful. Thanks for clearing that up.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  I didn’t notice any signaling from the comment you responded to. (I’m 100% pro-immigration, so I disagree with the _content_ of that commentator’s beliefs, but I can’t find fault with their tone.)
- qwe098cube 6y ago
  what signaling behavior?
mhh__ 6y ago
Political Extremism/Pandering.
spanktheuser 6y ago
The Acting Deputy for Homeland Security admitted on CNN that they’re using the threat of losing international students’ immense tuition to force universities and colleges to fully open in the fall. https://twitter.com/tcmassie/status/1280569206501789697?s=21 https://twitter.com/tcmassie/status/1280569206501789697?s=21
- chvid 6y ago
  I tried searching for an interview where Ken Cuccinelli says this on CNN but couldn't find it. However here is Ken Cuccinelli on Fox News Lou Dobbs just half a day ago where he lays out the thinking behind the policy change. Basically hire unemployed americans or let them study instead of the foreigners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3WQAP0m8qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3WQAP0m8qc
  - evgen 6y ago
    Try DeVos fielding softballs from the TV-dinner trust fund baby: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170013564001#sp=show-clips https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170013564001#sp=show-clips
standardUser 6y ago
It would be extremely unusual for a federal agency to make such a radical decision independently. This almost certainly came from higher up.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
  No policy decisions on immigration matters in this administration are made without going through Stephen Miller.
NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
As someone who apparently has formed a stance on immigration issues, it comes as a surprise to me that you haven't noticed the continuous pattern of using executive power to restrict both legal and illegal immigration activity during this administration.
- nocitrek 6y ago
  I have noticed it, do not worry. I would gladly migrate to US. I am from Europe, highly educated and believe I can contribute to the economy of US. I wish your immigration could be merit based - instead of green card lottery (silly concept). Give me ability to migrate to US for 2 years as probation period. After those 2 years had elapsed, determine if I am overall positive for the economy, did I commit any serious crimes, do I have permanent place to live, etc...; and based on that, let me stay permanently in the country, until I get citizenship.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    So, you are anti-immigration, as long as it doesn't affect you personally?
    - ra7 6y ago
      Or probably anti-immigration to their own country, but would “gladly migrate” to US if it were convenient.
      - hef19898 6y ago
        Sounds like it. And being frustrated because it is not as easy as hoped for.
    - oknaj 6y ago
      Sorry, should've clarified more. Anti-immigration in the current way it is implemented in US, compared to Canada / Australia, etc...
jhpriestley 6y ago
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.
- gfodor 6y ago
  It actually possible to figure it out. Explaining is assumed to be agreement in 2020, so you’ll have to go somewhere else to get the heuristics one can use to predict how Trump will bucket a specific group or individual. The inability to understand Trump will lead to his continued presence in politics, even after he leaves office. My intuition is that smart people who try to analyze him (eg Sam Harris) are so unwilling to try to ascribe anything other than cartoon-villain-like character traits to explain his behavior because doing so could somehow let them slip into having anything other than complete rejection of his entire being, which their morals disallow as an axiom.
- nine_zeros 6y ago
  Let's call it what it is: Racism
- WillPostForFood 6y ago
  >non white students I didn't see the exemption for white students in this. Because there isn't one?
  - hef19898 6y ago
    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 6y ago
      "White" people are a minority worldwide, any blanket foreign policy will disproportionately target non-white people.
andrewla 6y ago
This is a reversion to the previous practice of not allowing student visas if the student is not attending in-person classes. That rule was suspended back in March for COVID, but is now reinstated. Presumably this was traditionally implemented to prevent fake schools from enrolling students strictly for the purpose of allowing them entry into the country on a student visa.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  The original policy is not unreasonable. The exception is extremely reasonable. Suddenly undoing the exception is so unreasonable that it can really only be read as malicious. It would be so easy to write a policy that both prevents fake universities from existing to give visas while also not suddenly deporting hundreds of thousands of students.
Aunche 6y ago
My charitable interpretation is that giving visas to online students is open to abuse. If you're an undocumented worker, you can pay a few thousand dollars to stay in the US legally. You'd still be working illegally, but that would be much more difficult to prove.
UncleMeat 6y ago
Steven Miller doesn’t like immigrants. The broader Trump administration doesn’t like universities, and especially doesn’t like universities that are taking covid seriously. They can use this as leverage to try to force universities to have in person classes. This isn’t “blind hateful virtue-signalling”. It is the only reasonable explanation for a policy that provides no benefit to anybody, causes tremendous and sudden harm to legal immigrants, and causes tremendous and sudden harm to higher education institutions. What actual benefit comes from this? The universities have still admitted the students. There isn’t more room for Americans, and if there was it is way too late. The only thing I can see is that this messes with all of the students ability to get OPT visas, ensuring that they have a difficult time getting a job in the US after graduating even if they are highly skilled. But the h1b cap is filled every year anyway so this wouldn’t reduce the number of jobs “taken” by immigrants.
- devalgo 6y ago
  >Steven Miller doesn’t like immigrants. Sure he does, just not Brown ones. Trump has come out and said they want immigrants from places like Norway. Of course your average Norwegian would have to be insane to move to the US.

lordleft 6y ago

I really do think this is a cynical ploy to induce universities to open up more aggressively than they would like. That is the only reasoning I can come up with.

_jal 6y ago
Yes, it is a classic wedge. Try to force your opponents into an unpleasant choice, either of which is OK with you. Have to hand it to the anti-freedom of movement/association folks - this was a fairly clever one.
magicnubs 6y ago
What's the end game in this scenario? It feels like political suicide if it causes coronavirus deaths to spike even more before November, as people already don't care for how the administration has handled it. Although, since it's mostly young people, maybe cases would spike, but deaths wouldn't, making the virus seem less deadly. But maybe deaths are expected to spike either way, so better to both increase cases (with relatively fewer deaths making it seem less deadly, as mentioned above) and also spur the economy somewhat? Or maybe it's pure and simply just a way to energize the base by "scoring a point against the other team", as it is seen as bringing defiant liberal institutions to heel?
- magicnubs 6y ago
  (continued as I accidently submitted my comment too early) Or is it simply about making it seem like things have returned to normal? "See business are reopening, schools are reopening, the world is back to the way it was".
  - lordleft 6y ago
    I honestly don't know...it seems the majority of Americans are alive to the dangers of COVID and believe we aren't doing enough, and Trump's approval ratings are plummeting, so this doesn't make sense to me -- but his reaction doesn't have to be rational, it could be a desperate attempt to do exactly what you said, and cultivate the appearance of things being fine.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      Trump just believes in stuff. It doesn’t need to make sense. “It’ll go away by Easter”. Trump probably believes that if we all just go back to normal that we will be fine and he will be a hero because that’s how his mind works. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense.
    - pchristensen 6y ago
      "the majority of Americans are alive to the dangers of COVID and believe we aren't doing enough" Possibly a majority, but nowhere near all.
  - 121789 6y ago
    I think there are many interpretations that are all probably a little true Generous interpretation: if classes are primarily online, international students do not have a reason to reside in the US except for easier access to the labor market. With 20M Americans out of work, the administration is prioritizing citizens for first access to the labor market. Skeptical interpretation: This is another anti-immigrant change that uses COVID as a scapegoat for racist/nativist policy. I generally interpret most of the administration's moves as political gambles. Given current trends in deaths, they may be hoping that daily deaths are near zero with the country mostly opened back up by October. That seems like the only path to reelection given the current gap in approval ratings between the two candidates.
    - kec 6y ago
      F-1 students don't have access to the labor market outside of OPT which is limited and subject to government approval.

sheeshkebab 6y ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-rules-on-foreign-students-put-universitiesin-dilemma-11594149280 https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-rules-on-foreign-studen... If understand the rules have always been there (on limit for online classes)

apcragg 6y ago
The rules have always been there, but as the filing mentions, ICE said in March that the rule would be suspended for the duration of the emergency. They are now going-back on that statement which given the timing of the announcement is causing chaos.
- greggeter 6y ago
  Table 1 on this site suggests deaths are way down and maybe this doesn't fit CDC's definition of pandemic (emergency) anymore? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm And certainly excess deaths are trending down quite rapidly, per chart halfway down this page: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm If I were concerned about C-19 morbidity, I'd be encouraged by these numbers. I don't watch the news. Is the media also highlighting this? We'll see what things look like at the end of July.

dathinab 6y ago

Just guessing, but the place most foreign students come from is China. There have been multiple claims that China is using oversees students to steal knowledge or that University have become to dependent on the money from Chinese students and cooperations. Be aware that I'm just saying such claims did happen not that they are true. The fact that many countries also doesn't want to open border to the US again for now might also play a role.

somurzakov 6y ago
I think you got it backwards. Chinese students are not stealing the knowledge, they are creating the knowledge. They do research, the hard work and publish papers. A lot of them want to stay here, but anti-immigration policies leave them with no other choice other than go back to their home countries and work for CCP. It almost looks like Trump is forcing top students to leave US and bring their knowledge back to China to benefit CCP.
- hef19898 6y ago
  Works kind of imilar in Germany. Stay for your studies, which are basically free for everyone who enrolled at a university. Be forced to leave if earn under a certain threshold. That threshold was roughly double of my first salary right after graduation, and I was on the higher end of my semester. Having applied this threshold to my semester, we would have all been forced to leave. Kind of cracy, if you ask me.
- dathinab 6y ago
  > I think you got it backwards. Chinese students are not stealing the knowledge [..] No this are not thinks I believe. This are claims which came up one different articles in the recent year(s) on hackernews and are things you might hear from people which are strongly anti-foreigen students or people like Trump.

_jal 6y ago

> blind hateful virtue-signaling please So your signaling behavior is fine, but that from others is blind and hateful. Thanks for clearing that up.

umanwizard 6y ago
I didn’t notice any signaling from the comment you responded to. (I’m 100% pro-immigration, so I disagree with the _content_ of that commentator’s beliefs, but I can’t find fault with their tone.)
qwe098cube 6y ago
what signaling behavior?

mhh__ 6y ago

Political Extremism/Pandering.

spanktheuser 6y ago

The Acting Deputy for Homeland Security admitted on CNN that they’re using the threat of losing international students’ immense tuition to force universities and colleges to fully open in the fall. https://twitter.com/tcmassie/status/1280569206501789697?s=21 https://twitter.com/tcmassie/status/1280569206501789697?s=21

chvid 6y ago
I tried searching for an interview where Ken Cuccinelli says this on CNN but couldn't find it. However here is Ken Cuccinelli on Fox News Lou Dobbs just half a day ago where he lays out the thinking behind the policy change. Basically hire unemployed americans or let them study instead of the foreigners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3WQAP0m8qc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3WQAP0m8qc
- evgen 6y ago
  Try DeVos fielding softballs from the TV-dinner trust fund baby: https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170013564001#sp=show-clips https://video.foxnews.com/v/6170013564001#sp=show-clips

standardUser 6y ago

It would be extremely unusual for a federal agency to make such a radical decision independently. This almost certainly came from higher up.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago
No policy decisions on immigration matters in this administration are made without going through Stephen Miller.

NovemberWhiskey 6y ago

As someone who apparently has formed a stance on immigration issues, it comes as a surprise to me that you haven't noticed the continuous pattern of using executive power to restrict both legal and illegal immigration activity during this administration.

nocitrek 6y ago
I have noticed it, do not worry. I would gladly migrate to US. I am from Europe, highly educated and believe I can contribute to the economy of US. I wish your immigration could be merit based - instead of green card lottery (silly concept). Give me ability to migrate to US for 2 years as probation period. After those 2 years had elapsed, determine if I am overall positive for the economy, did I commit any serious crimes, do I have permanent place to live, etc...; and based on that, let me stay permanently in the country, until I get citizenship.
- hef19898 6y ago
  So, you are anti-immigration, as long as it doesn't affect you personally?
  - ra7 6y ago
    Or probably anti-immigration to their own country, but would “gladly migrate” to US if it were convenient.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Sounds like it. And being frustrated because it is not as easy as hoped for.
  - oknaj 6y ago
    Sorry, should've clarified more. Anti-immigration in the current way it is implemented in US, compared to Canada / Australia, etc...

jhpriestley 6y ago

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.

gfodor 6y ago
It actually possible to figure it out. Explaining is assumed to be agreement in 2020, so you’ll have to go somewhere else to get the heuristics one can use to predict how Trump will bucket a specific group or individual. The inability to understand Trump will lead to his continued presence in politics, even after he leaves office. My intuition is that smart people who try to analyze him (eg Sam Harris) are so unwilling to try to ascribe anything other than cartoon-villain-like character traits to explain his behavior because doing so could somehow let them slip into having anything other than complete rejection of his entire being, which their morals disallow as an axiom.
nine_zeros 6y ago
Let's call it what it is: Racism
WillPostForFood 6y ago
>non white students I didn't see the exemption for white students in this. Because there isn't one?
- hef19898 6y ago
  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 6y ago
    "White" people are a minority worldwide, any blanket foreign policy will disproportionately target non-white people.

andrewla 6y ago

This is a reversion to the previous practice of not allowing student visas if the student is not attending in-person classes. That rule was suspended back in March for COVID, but is now reinstated. Presumably this was traditionally implemented to prevent fake schools from enrolling students strictly for the purpose of allowing them entry into the country on a student visa.

UncleMeat 6y ago
The original policy is not unreasonable. The exception is extremely reasonable. Suddenly undoing the exception is so unreasonable that it can really only be read as malicious. It would be so easy to write a policy that both prevents fake universities from existing to give visas while also not suddenly deporting hundreds of thousands of students.

Aunche 6y ago

My charitable interpretation is that giving visas to online students is open to abuse. If you're an undocumented worker, you can pay a few thousand dollars to stay in the US legally. You'd still be working illegally, but that would be much more difficult to prove.

UncleMeat 6y ago

Steven Miller doesn’t like immigrants. The broader Trump administration doesn’t like universities, and especially doesn’t like universities that are taking covid seriously. They can use this as leverage to try to force universities to have in person classes. This isn’t “blind hateful virtue-signalling”. It is the only reasonable explanation for a policy that provides no benefit to anybody, causes tremendous and sudden harm to legal immigrants, and causes tremendous and sudden harm to higher education institutions. What actual benefit comes from this? The universities have still admitted the students. There isn’t more room for Americans, and if there was it is way too late. The only thing I can see is that this messes with all of the students ability to get OPT visas, ensuring that they have a difficult time getting a job in the US after graduating even if they are highly skilled. But the h1b cap is filled every year anyway so this wouldn’t reduce the number of jobs “taken” by immigrants.

devalgo 6y ago
>Steven Miller doesn’t like immigrants. Sure he does, just not Brown ones. Trump has come out and said they want immigrants from places like Norway. Of course your average Norwegian would have to be insane to move to the US.