Student Union
- By Aline Barros
H-1B Visa Halt Will Deter Foreign Students, Experts Say
A Trump administration order to suspend H-1B, J and other temporary work visas will further deter international students from seeking higher education in the United States, education experts say.
The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) – an advocacy organization of public research universities, land-grant institutions, state university systems, and higher education organizations in all 50 states – said they are "deeply" concerned about Monday's presidential proclamation.
“We can’t afford to cede ground to international competitors at this critical time,” APLU president Peter McPherson said on the association’s website. “Suspending new visas in these areas will hamstring our economic recovery and diminish our standing as the world’s most innovative economy.”
Among the organization’s 246 members with significant numbers of foreign students are California Polytechnic State University, University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
H-1B visas cover highly skilled occupations that require at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent. The suspension affects applicants, not existing visa holders.
J visas include exchange visitors, such as foreign nationals participating in programs as interns, trainees, teachers, camp counselors, au pairs or summer workers.
“We also urge the administration to bolster efforts to keep foreign-born graduates in the United States. We draw the world’s brightest minds to our university campuses, and we should make every effort to ensure they make discoveries, start businesses and create jobs in the United States," McPherson said.
President Donald Trump's executive order is intended to protect U.S. workers, the White House said.
“That’s gonna help out recent grads who are American and legal immigrants, and also people who’ve been sidelined by the pandemic who might be able to step in and will now have a chance at some of these seasonal jobs that are now not gonna be filled with foreign workers,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at Center for Immigration Studies.
“This move is going to help our recovery in that way, by putting people back to work who otherwise would not have had the chance to get these jobs.”
But Cato Institute immigration policy analyst David Bier said the order is economically baseless.
"It will hurt the recovery and U.S. workers,” Bier said. “Foreign workers create demand for other better jobs for U.S. workers elsewhere in the economy.
“Restricting migration will not lower unemployment, but it will harm American businesses — that are struggling to make it through this period — who employ both Americans and immigrants," he said.
U.S. companies are allowed to employ foreign workers who hold H-1B non-immigrant visas. The holders are allowed to stay in the U.S. for only 60 days without being paid. As the COVID-19 pandemic has shuttered businesses, many H-1B visa holders have lost their jobs and, unlike American workers, don't qualify for unemployment benefits.
Experts say the U.S. technology industry will suffer drastically if H1-B visa holders lose their legal work status in the U.S.
“If the U.S. government really bans H1-B, J-1, etc., the U.S. science will be dead soon, which means the U.S. industry and technology, too,” tweeted Yukiko Yamashita, a developmental biologist at the University of Michigan who will move to the Whitehead Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this fall.
If the US government really bans H1-B, J-1 etc., the US science will be dead soon, which means the US industry and technology, too (for those who don't care about science but care about money). 1/
— Yamashita Lab (@yamashitaflylab) June 14, 2020
Around “50 percent of my lab members have been immigrants throughout my time as a professor (and if you include second generation of immigrants, number goes up),” wrote Yamashita in an email to VOA. “Many other labs are that way. And professors in my current institute are also 40-50 percent foreign born.
“This country is 'importing' highly educated people to support their science/ technology, and this is not something one can replace by hiring domestic people only. (not enough qualified people),” wrote Yamashita, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grantee.
“This is yet another example of the unwelcoming message the United States continues to send to prospective students and immigrants around the world," Jill Allen Murray, deputy executive director for public policy of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, wrote to VOA. "While the administration claims that the purpose behind this proclamation is to address the needed economic recovery post-COVID-19 pandemic, these restrictions will have the opposite effect.
“Immigrants in this country create jobs, not take them,” Murray wrote.
She added that if the country continues to be unwelcoming, foreign workers “will take their talent, jobs and economic contributions elsewhere.”
H-1B workers who are already in the U.S. were not part of this week’s proclamation. Foreign students in the U.S. on F-1 visas or arriving in the fall, or students on Optional Practical Training (OPT) visas, were also not included.
But OPT, the program that allows foreign students an extended visa to stay in the U.S. for up to three years after graduation, is also under review. OPT is popular among science, technology, engineering and math students who hope to remain in the country on H-1B visas.
According to a NAFSA: Association of International Educators study, international students at U.S. colleges contribute nearly $41 billion to the country's economy and support 458,290 jobs.
FWD.us, a political organization founded by tech and business leaders, said on its blog that OPT suspension will force highly educated workers to leave the country.
“This would be a significant mistake that will hurt our economy long term while providing no substantial impact on job or wage growth in the short term,” the organization wrote.
Sarmat Misikov contributed to this report.
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Paper: International students faced extra pandemic challenges
Astrobites, which describes itself as "a daily astrophysical literature journal written by graduate students in astronomy since 2010," focuses on the challenges international students faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It examines a paper published in the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education entitled The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on International Students in a Public University in the United States: Academic and Non-academic Challenges.
Read the Astrobites article here. (April 2024)
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Read the list here. (March 2024)
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Studying STEM? International students have funding options
US News & World Report takes a look at funding options for international students pursuing STEM degrees in the U.S.
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- By Robin Guess
US campuses are battlegrounds in free speech debate
This week the University of Southern California canceled the graduation speech of its senior class valedictorian at a time when there is a growing debate over the limits of free speech on American college campuses.
USC’s Asna Tabassum, a Muslim biomedical engineer major, was selected from among 100 outstanding students to address the graduating class of 2024 this May. However, the school withdrew the invitation for her to speak at the graduation ceremony citing safety concerns.
Tabassum denounced the decision, which she attributed to her public support for Palestinian human rights. She said it is part of “a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice.”
The school maintains it is a safety issue, not about free speech. School officials say they received an alarming number of violent threats after selecting her as speaker.
USC is one of many American universities that have struggled with policies over free speech and campus protest since October’s Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and the continuing fighting in Gaza. After weeks or months of on-campus protests and rallies, schools have been taking more forceful action to punish protesters who administrators say have become disruptive.
On Thursday at Columbia University in New York, police arrested more than 100 students who had gathered on campus for pro-Palestinian protests. The school’s dean wrote that the protesters had been told several times that they were violating university policies and would be suspended. The students say they were exercising their free speech rights.
At Washington’s American University, protests in all campus buildings have been banned by the school’s president since January. Under the new policy, students may not hold rallies, engage in silent protests or place posters in any campus building.
Protests and safety
University students have a long history of engaging in political activism. From the Vietnam War to abortion rights, universities have played a key role in American political debates.
However, students now say that schools like AU with a long-standing protest culture are silencing protesters with new rules.
Arusa Islam, American University student body president-elect and current vice president, says the policies are preventing an open discussion about U.S. foreign policy.
“Indoor protesting was never a problem, it was never an issue before October 7th,” Islam said. “Students were allowed to put up posters in buildings and students were allowed to have a silent protest.”
“And now we don’t have that right anymore,” she added. “We have been silenced and it is affecting us greatly.”
American University’s president, Sylvia Burwell, says the school’s new policies are intended to ensure that protests do not disrupt university activity.
Burwell also referred to recent events on campus that “made Jewish students feel unsafe and unwelcome.” She added, antisemitism is abhorrent, wrong, and will not be tolerated at American University.
While administrators insist that they are making narrow restrictions in the interests of providing an education, critics say the policies have a far-reaching effect.
At Cornell University, where new rules took effect in January, Claire Ting, the executive vice president of the Cornell Student Assembly, said the policies have had an unsettling effect on campus.
“The campus climate at Cornell has been tense surrounding free speech in recent times,” Ting emailed VOA.
Ting said that both students and faculty feel the policy has had chilling effects on free expression.
“Students report facing arbitrary, escalating punishment for violating the policy, with the policy itself lacking clear outlines for the consequences of civil disobedience,” she added.
In its new policy Cornell warns students that disciplinary action may be taken if protests impede people or traffic, damage school property or interfere with the school’s operations in any way.
In its campus-wide notice explaining the new guidelines, the school wrote that the new policy would ensure that expressive activity is allowed but must remain nonviolent.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, also known as FIRE, has tracked free speech issues on American campuses.
FIRE and College Pulse have produced an annual survey, since 2022, ranking colleges based on their policies and what students say about the free speech climate on campus.
This year the group reported that “alarming” numbers of students say they self-censor or “find their administrations unclear” on free speech issues.
“College campuses have always been places where students have been unafraid to express themselves and with the recent Gaza conflict after the 10/7 attacks, it’s been very heated on both sides of this issue,” said Zach Greenberg, the senior program officer of FIRE.
Harvard ranked last in this year’s survey. FIRE said the school punished some professors and researchers over what they had said or written, and students reported a poor climate for free speech on campus.
The controversy came to Congress late last year, when Harvard’s president testified over complaints of widespread antisemitism.
“I don’t think you’d find many students on campus right now that would say we are the model for flourishing free speech and ideas exchange in the country,” said J. Sellers Hill, president of Harvard’s school newspaper The Harvard Crimson.
“But I think you’ve really seen that be acknowledged by administrators and it seems to be something they are dedicated to taking on.”
As the head of The Harvard Crimson, Hill manages the paper’s 350 editors and 90 reporters, who’ve covered, in detail, the ongoing free speech/protests controversy and the resignation of former President Claudine Gay following her testimony to Congress.
“I think no one would dispute Harvard has work to do and progress to make,” Hill said. “I think it’s a tough sell, for me, that Harvard is uniquely in its own league in terms of intolerance of speech. That doesn’t square with what I have seen on our college campus or on other college campuses around the country. I think Harvard is held to a higher standard.”
Proposed settlement offered over financial aid allegations
A group of U.S. colleges and universities have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging deceptive financial aid tactics, according to a report published in The Hill.
The schools would pay $284 million to plaintiffs who were enrolled full-time and received financial aid between 2003 and 2024.
The schools have denied the allegations. (April 2024)
