[eiji]

I read that. And again, this is a policy. You are not thinking this through, in my opinion.

Think about this in a way an accountable official would think.

Most universities don't know what they will do yet in the fall. If you make an exemption for people who are currently already in the country, what would that solve? It would artificially pick those students over those who happened to travel home for the summer. You can't do that. That would probably make such a rule unlawful. So you have to craft such a "heavy handed" rule in such a way that it doesn't have loop holes that can be exploited. Don't think lawyers didn't review this exemption for weeks.

And my earlier points still stand.

I'm not trying to convince people that this rule is all that good. But understand where it comes from, and don't think it's all because of a particular administration. There is certainly logic to this rule. You may not agree with it, but I might not agree with closed schools either.

[aaomidi]

> Think about this in a way an accountable official would think.

No they wouldn't. I've held various (small scale) public facing offices before and this isn't how I would think.

Thinking of the consequences of your actions is a very important thing.

> If you make an exemption for people who are currently already in the country, what would that solve?

Decrease the damage done?

> So you have to craft such a "heavy handed" rule in such a way that it doesn't have loop holes that can be exploited. Don't think lawyers didn't review this exemption for weeks.

They probably didn't. We've seen this administration do bullshit orders before. This isn't a new one. Remember when they banned green card holders from coming to the US and there was chaos for 12-24 hours until they came and said whoops those are exempted?

> And my earlier points still stand.

Your wrong points do stand, yes.

> But understand where it comes from

I do. It's bullshit.

[eiji]

You are not addressing any of my points with any substance. But you have to resort to cursing twice.

[bdhe]

The reason the other commentator thinks your post is bullshit because it doesn't address the clause in the order that requires F-1 students currently already in the country to leave if classes are online-only. This order is not done by some agency being thoughtful about covid19, it's about using the pandemic to put out more xenophobia that the WH will more than approve.

[aaomidi]

Thank you. I just didn't see a point in discussing this further.

Isolationism and enforcing an extra set of standards on __others__ is always disgusting to me. Especially when we've been failing at every step of the way of this pandemic.

[bdhe]

True. You'll see later that the commenter simultaneously holds the view that covid is overblown but also that we need to move heaven and earth to save schoolchildren, while I bet they're in full support of Trump's asinine "SCHOOLS MUST OPEN!" tweet.

[eiji]

But I am addressing it. You cannot make circumstancial exemptions like "if you are currently in the country" to a merit based visa. That way the whole thing can be struck down in court.

And again, we are negatively impacting the entire population with very draconian rules and lock downs. Heavy handedness all around. But somehow none essential foreign influx is just fine? They can come if they have to, clearly.

People are really measuring all this by two standards. If you think it's okay for citizens to be impacted by necessary lock downs, parents not working due to young children staying home, but foreign students are cozy in their home office?

[bdhe]

You're being disingenuous. They already had an exception through Spring and Summer 2020. No one batted an eyelid. They're removing the exception they had to a stricter by-the-book enforcement for no particular reason except to use the opportunity to kick out more foreigners. I see that as a plainly xenophobic motivation.

> People are really measuring all this by two standards. If you think it's okay for citizens to be impacted by necessary lock downs, parents not working due to young children staying home, but foreign students are cozy in their home office?

I think this phrasing is completely devoid of empathy. Students in a foreign country typically having taken big loans and paying through their teeth are in a much more vulnerable position than citizens. There's no reason to compare one set of circumstances with another.

At the end, universities will be forced to offer some portion of their courses as in-person which will only make the pandemic worse. Do you think these measures are making the country safer if that happens?

[eiji]

> I see that as a plainly xenophobic motivation.

Why is that? The pandemic drags on. Half of the country remains under severe restrictions. Schools and summer camps are still mostly none-existent. Why would a country continue with exemptions when similar privileges are not granted by many originating countries?

> Students ... paying through their teeth ...

Do you have any sources for those students typically paying through their teeth?

While other countries close their borders to visa holders due to the pandemic, we don't do that in most cases. Only if your particular institution doesn't need you to be here. This rule is not void of fairness. It's compromising a difficult situation.

I'm not naïve about the bigger picture, which certainly doesn't make this any easier. We have a gravy train setup for higher education, with students paying full tuition, often displacing the local population. We have higher ed with signaling power to schools across the country. We have political disagreements with the biggest origin country. And we have a pandemic.

If there is just one student saved from coming here, that would've caused an elementary school to go into a month long covid19 shutdown in September, then this by-the-book enforcement is worth it to me. I would never assume a University would adjust their attendance plans for a semester just for foreign students alone. That wouldn't be very rational, or would it be?

* https://www.statista.com/statistics/233880/international-stu...

* https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...