[kochb]

Don’t miss this bit. Currently enrolled students are going to need to find a new university.

> In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security sent a stark message to Harvard’s international students: “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”

[goatlover]

I don't get how DHS has control over what universities foreign students can attend. Either than can attend school in the US or not. Saying they have to transfer from Harvard to another American university is total abuse of power. Surely there are lawsuits in the works over this.

[throwaway219450]

The F/J exhange visa is tied to a specific sponsor (ie the University) for a very specific goal. There are a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do. If your visa sponsor has its privilege revoked then presumably you have a choice to transfer to a different institute, if one will take you, or leave the country.

There is a mechanism for that transfer built into the visa, which could be used for example if your professor moved institutions and wanted to re-hire you to fulfil the original goals of your exchange program.

It's unclear if this affects all foreign academic staff, many of whom who would be on the J, or just the F visa.

Edit: apparently all exhange visas.

[GuinansEyebrows]

i'd guess this kind of thing (per-institutional authorization to allow international students) was intended to provide the government a way to revoke that right from "sham" institutions (wonder if Trump University ever had international students?) or ones that otherwise were obviously trying to facilitate students skirting or abusing immigration law.

not that i agree with that anyways (citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah) but it's pretty clear we're currently dealing with a regime that's willing to use ambiguous regulations in malicious ways (no comment on previous regimes, they're all bad, don't call me a HN Democrat or whatever).

[LightHugger]

Chesterton's fence is way too relevant, when it comes to the "citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah" part.

[FpUser]

It seems that the amount of fences is growing up exponentially. To the point that we are all corralled. Not so long time ago people could move from country to country relatively freely. Now it is a fucking tragedy

[corimaith]

>Not so long time ago people could move from country to country relatively freely

The well-off rich and upper middle-class could move from country to country relatively freely, or immigrants who intended not to look back. Which puts a strong pressure on self-selection on the type of people coming into a country.

That time isn't now, with cheap airfares and the internet, it's much more easier for anyone to come in, often with no intention of integration and bringing their own sectarian politics in. When the time comes, how many of these immigrants do you think will fight for their host country? Especially if said host country make likely come into conflict with their homelands.

[FpUser]

>"When the time comes, how many of these immigrants do you think will fight for their host country? Especially if said host country make likely come into conflict with their homelands."

Same arguments were just as valid 100-200 years ago where virtually anyone could move anywhere.

[GuinansEyebrows]

well, it'd be relevant if i was actually discussing the idea of immediately abolishing all borders and countries, which i'm definitely not doing here.

[H4X0R112]

Even in the Pre-Industrial Age, Obvious differences existed between class hierarchy or ethnicities. When an Empire does not specifically identify with one or two ethnicities, most societies have always been wary of foreigners by calling them "Barbarians". Chichimecas, Mongols, Non-Greeks, Non-Han Chinese, etc.

[skissane]

> not that i agree with that anyways (citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah)

Millions of people worldwide have values that are radically different from yours or mine or >99% of people reading this. Consider, a country like Afghanistan-no doubt there are millions of Afghans who oppose the Taliban and are trapped under the rule of a government whose policies and values they radically oppose - and they are denied any realistic outlet to advocate for change using non-violent means-but, at the same time, there are also millions of Afghans who support the Taliban, who think it is great and its values and laws and policies and actions are all wonderful-do you really want millions of pro-Taliban Afghans to be allowed to move to your country if they want to and can afford to do so, and be allowed to vote in your elections as soon as they turn up? This isn’t saying we should ban immigrants or refugees from Afghanistan, only have some kind of filtering process which excludes those with radically opposed values, such as those who are pro-Taliban - and, so nobody thinks I’m singling out Afghans for special treatment, there are several other countries for which the same concern exists (consider e.g. Iran, North Korea), and such a “filtering process” can be designed to work in a way which treats immigrants/refugees of different nationalities/ethnicities/religions equally. But complete abolition of citizenship and immigration control would leave your country at the mercy of chance in terms of protection against takeover by newcomers with radically different values, and although in the short-run you’d escape that outcome (even if they were all free to come, most of them either don’t want to or can’t afford to), in the long-run the odds that you’d succumb to it only go up. And such a policy is fundamentally unstable, in that it would eventually become the cause of its own demise: once these newcomers with radically different values (whatever those values might be) take over, their new values will cause them to reinstate immigration and citizenship controls, to prevent anyone else doing to them what they did to you.

That’s not to say I agree with what the Trump administration is doing here - I actually sympathise with some conservative criticisms of Harvard, but this isn’t a gentle federal nudge in the right direction, it is attacking Harvard with a legally dubious sledgehammer - but just because an administration abuses immigration laws (something many governments around the world have done many times before) doesn’t change the fact that some degree of legal control of immigration and naturalisation is the right thing to have in principle

[amanaplanacanal]

The US had no immigration laws for the first 100 years, during which time many of our ancestors came here. The only reason we had any immigration laws to begin with was racism against Chinese people. Now we are making up other excuses for it, based on no evidence whatsoever.

[skissane]

> The US had no immigration laws for the first 100 years,

The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship by naturalisation to “free white persons” of “good moral character” - yes, it didn’t technically bar immigration from people who didn’t meet that criterion, but it reduced them to an underclass who were denied citizenship - and this was prior to the 14th Amendment, so there was no constitutional right to birthright citizenship even for their children born in the US.

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (still on the books but long dormant until recently revived by Trump) gave the federal government the power to deport citizens of countries at war with the US - effectively banning them from immigrating. The Alien Friends Act of 1798 allowed the President to deport any foreigner based on the President’s subjective determination that they were “dangerous”- however, it expired in 1800 and was not renewed.

In the early years of US independence, there were state laws enabling deportation of immigrants - e.g. in 1794 Massachusetts responded to the “problem” of poor Irish immigrants with a state law authorising their deportation back to Ireland, and several were actually deported under this Act. While nowadays, state-level deportation laws would surely be struck down as intruding into an exclusive federal domain, the lack of broad federal deportation statutes for much of the 18th/19th centuries left open a (since closed) constitutional space in which state-level deportation laws could exist

Even prior to US independence, British law gave the colonial authorities the power to deport people they viewed as undesirable - rarely exercised, but it legally existed - and the main reason they rarely exercised it was they didn’t get many “undesirable” immigrants turning up

Note I’m not defending these laws - judged by today’s standards they were racist and deeply unfair - just pointing out that the “first 100 years” of the US wasn’t as “open borders” as you paint it as having been

And while no doubt historically (and even today) many immigration laws have been racist in their terms, motivation, or implementation - I don’t think the idea of having some restrictions on immigration is inherently racist. Almost every country on earth (even non-Western) nowadays has laws saying people convicted of very serious crimes cannot immigrate without special permission - is it “racist” if Botswana says to someone just released from serving a 20 year prison sentence for terrorism “sorry, we don’t want you”?

[fnordpiglet]

Which isn’t at all how PhD programs work. This is a supreme dick move to students are going to be forced to leave with an AbD for no other reason than Trumps ego.

This is going to burn the children of the most powerful families across the world. Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard. Destroying their children’s education out of a fit of malice is going to haunt him, and America on top of all the other stuff America is doing to the world.

America first is rapidly becoming America alone.

[fnordpiglet]

Here’s a case in point - future queen of Belgium kicked out of college by the president of the United States:

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5316202-future-queen-...

[bergerjac]

Considering it’s not 1733, a future Belgian monarch has almost zero power.

[kbigdelysh]

You're very wrong if you think harvard accepts children of dictators and monarchies for its graduate programs. It's near impossible to get into those program except if you are a genius (exceptionally high GPA and GRE grades, published valuable scientific papers in prestigious journals). Just check the graduate student's directory to see what I mean.

[bongoman42]

Or have the right demographic details.

[anigbrowl]

children of the most powerful families across the world

I doubt that most of those people are reliant on student visas.

[fnordpiglet]

The students absolutely are. Up until now the law applies to everyone. Now, their applications were probably rapidly approved unlike many international students. But there’s no carve out for being powerful (yet).

[moralestapia]

You cannot jump over immigration requirements "just because you're powerful", and the vast majority of them are not US citizens.

[londons_explore]

They could easily get an E2 entrepreneur visa, and the necessary cash is as little as $300k, most of which can be withdrawn later, so it's effectively a free citizenship as long as you have cash.

[EduardoBautista]

E2 visa is not available to everyone. Notably Indian and Chinese citizens are not eligible. And that is a large chunk of international students.

[ndsipa_pomu]

You could probably get round immigration requirements by "gifting" a jet or something

[mandmandam]

> You cannot jump over immigration requirements

You probably will be able to soon though, and it 'only' costs $5m: "A ‘Trump Card Visa’ Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms" [0]

I couldn't blame you for not having seen this though. It was quickly flagged and never whitelisted; like so, so many other important stories here this past few months. Check my favorites for more falsely flagged stories.

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43921421

[anigbrowl]

[delayed]

[epolanski]

He's 78 and at the end of his political career in few years, he could care less.

[loloquwowndueo]

He couldn’t care less.

[redcobra762]

Or maybe he could care less, but doesn't even bother to care less because caring less would exert effort and he doesn't care enough to exert any effort.

[loloquwowndueo]

Own the grammar mistake, my dude :)

[flexagoon]

The grammar mistake was done by a different person

[HKH2]

It's not a grammar mistake. It's faulty logic.

[AlecSchueler]

He could care less is the common phrase by now, even if it doesn't make literal sense.

[lern_too_spel]

"Could care less" used as a snarky response makes sense, as in, "I could care less, but I don't want to put in the effort." Using that phrase without a sarcastic intonation is still incorrect.

[AlecSchueler]

Could care less meaning couldn't care less. It's the same thing as how literally has come to be used with the meaning of figuratively. If you look up "could care less" in the OED you'll find it lists it under American English with the meaning "could not care less."

[fnordpiglet]

This is a tour of vengeance, creating a place in history, establishing a family dynasty of inherited power, and a smatter of narcissistic delusion.

[ihsw]

[flagged]

[8bitsrule]

Making the government small enough to drown in the bathtub? (Grover Norquist's goal)

[klipt]

Big military, big ICE and strong arming universities are not "small government" policies.

[Volundr]

These are the pieces controlled solely by the executive branch. The goal is total unequivocal control, not anarchy.

[bamboozled]

Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard

When you frame it like this... it doesn't sound like such a loss. But yeah, it's not the only way to frame it.

[lobsterthief]

The percentage of Harvard international students who fall into this category is statistically insignificant. It’s not even worth framing.

[orlp]

It's not about the percentage of Harvard international students who fall into this category, it's about the percentage of students in this category who go to Harvard.

[BobaFloutist]

Also fairly low. There's plenty of high-prestige institutions in the world.

[rf15]

As someone from europe I'd say Harvard and MIT are the #1 prestige institutions, and a lot of people will not settle for less.

[fnordpiglet]

As a percentage of -students- yes but as a percentage of world power children? That’s a much smaller cohort, and is the cohort that matters in this context.

[rayiner]

[flagged]

[victorbjorklund]

That is just insane. How much do you think it costs or how poor do you think people in say france are where only criminals can afford it?

[rayiner]

I didn’t say France, did I? I’m talking about africa, the middle east, much of asia, and parts of eastern europe. E.g.., maybe not Poland, but probably Russia.

[_DeadFred_]

I remember when you claimed the APA didn't apply to this. At least now you don't bother to defend based on legality and are cool with forcing your 'totally not corrupt' single totalitarian viewpoint on the country in order to counter... corrupt totalitarianism.

Get rid of Harvard and the person you mentioned would just... go somewhere else. You aren't actually advocated FOR anything, just saying 'there are bad people in the world'. Um, ok, yeah, we know that. That's why we disagree with you empowering those we see as bad people but that you defend illegally empowering/illegal behavior of because you happen to agree with them.

[rayiner]

The APA doesn’t apply to this—issuing visas as a discretionary function of the executive, and thus unreviewable under section 701(a)(2). Where am I being inconsistent?

Have any of the challenges to the administration prevailed on APA grounds in an appellate court?

[monkey_monkey]

[flagged]

[dang]

Please don't cross into name-calling or personal attack, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We've had to ask you this more than once before and your account has unfortunately been continuing to break the rules pretty badly.

[rayiner]

I used that example because it’s my family. My mom’s family’s landholdings have grown in value as our capital city grows, so my aunts and uncles are selling plots and buying houses in California in cash. This is after distributing my grandfather’s estate among a dozen kids. From a country where the per-capita GDP is $2,400 per year. How do you think that happened? This background is table stakes for being part of the 0.1% that has the means to emigrate out of these countries and send their kids to elite American schools.

[kristopolous]

Ah yes, this is how we will be competitive - defunding universities, deporting the best and brightest, dismantling education, and cutting off trade.

I mean seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?

[neumann]

They (the current administration) doesn't want to be competitive. They want to be in full control and willing to destroy any institution, organization or person that opposes them, internal or external.

[schnitzelstoat]

It's like he read Why Nations Fail as a guidebook.

[spacemadness]

Can we say "fascism" out loud yet or are moderates still pretending everything is fine?

[esseph]

[flagged]

[anonfordays]

The other side four years ago:

Can we say "Marxism" out loud yet or are moderates still pretending everything is fine?

[mptest]

[flagged]

[kristopolous]

were the banks nationalized? All capital over 1 million seized and redistributed? Private property collectivized? Abandoned properties commandeered for the homeless by the state? I must have missed it.

What's "communism" now? The public park? A library? What's the current communist thing that makes you couch faint?

[anonfordays]

were the death camps created? all minorities sized and placed into camps? all members of society involved in the war effort? expansionist wars being started? I must have missed it.

What's "fascism" now? Enforcing borders? Deporting illegal immigrants? What's the current fascist thing that makes you couch faint?

[const_cast]

Marxism is when ultra-capitalist slightly right leaning politicians make boring policies to further enrich the American capitalist class. Oh and also some token "woke" stuff that doesn't really help anyone but I guess doesn't make anything worse either.

There's not a single Marxist in American politics at any level of power that matters. We have two neo-liberal parties that are both right leaning. One is ultra-right and one is ever so slightly right leaning.

[SR2Z]

AOC and Sanders wanted a JOB GUARANTEE as part of the GND. The "one-time wealth tax" is confiscation and redistribution.

That's sure as hell not capitalism.

In what world is a party advocating for universal healthcare, free college, and expanded immigration "slightly right?"

[platevoltage]

Luckily Jon Stewart finally came to his senses.

[eli_gottlieb]

I tolerate my normie family saying it, but it grates on me because of how many of the constituencies have switched sides by now. For instance, educated professionals were a major base for the original Nazi Party, while nowadays the fascists seem to really loathe that class stratum.

[mrbigbob]

"For instance, educated professionals were a major base for the original Nazi Party." Thats not entirely true. While there were definitely many people in education who supported the nazi party there were still quite a few in the education field during the beginning of Hitlers power who were not and many fled to other countries starting around 1933. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/5299/The-scientific.... it was why albert einstein spent a great deal of time in the US.

Through laws they shaped and molded the education to be inline with nazi ideology and only those who towed the line were allowed to continue to teach/study. heres a small article from the US Congress (shocked its still up) that discusses higher education in germany during nazi occupation. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116973/documents/...

Basically if you disagreed with the nazi party you were fired/expelled in the beginning and later sent to camps. the entire point of studying history is so we dont repeat it and just looking at the amount of US universities bending to the republican parties ideals on what they believe is scarily similar to early nazi germany.

I dont get how people dont understand that the strength of the US for the longest time has been our diversity; especially in education. hell, after world war 2 we actively recurited many nazi scientist to help us with the space program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip many would argue it is the reason why we beat the soviet union to the moon. the harm that is slowly being done to this country will take decades to repair if it can be and i dont believe that is being hyperbolic

[victorbjorklund]

Not really. The nazis party had the same rethoric. Of course they recruited business leaders etc despite that. Just like people like Elon are part of the MAGA movement.

[nec4b]

Do you know the story of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf"?

[spacemadness]

Do you know how condescending and useless that statement is?

[nec4b]

It is only useless on mindless elitist mind. Why would it be condescending to remind people actions have consequences?

[trealira]

[flagged]

[nec4b]

[flagged]

[0x5f3759df-i]

They’d probably try to be more subtle about it.

[scrubs]

Whence the salient and more pressing question: why does the gop in the legislative branch take a zero?

We've all had bad bosses ... and that's a problem, but it's 10x worse when the people around know better and do nothing.

[paulryanrogers]

They're afraid of losing to a primary challenger if they break with Trump. It used to be a Trump endorsement would hurt your campaign. Now a Trump critique is believed to be a scarlet letter. He's got a lock on the racist zealots that make up the most consistent voting bloc in the GOP.

[QuarterReptile]

They never picked off Newhouse, IIRC.

[Aeolun]

I think the problem is that half of the country (has been made to) wants to sabotage itself. Therefore, they elect and keep in power someone that gives them exactly what they want.

[giardini]

Yeah, the way the Democratic Party self-destructed was indeed enlightening and frightening. And they continue to point fingers at each other and present specious arguments why they failed in the last election.

Meamwhile the Republicans, while making headway, aren't doing it in a way that will last beyond the next Democratic administration. I'm speaking of the overuse of executive orders when legislation is what is required.

[nebula8804]

DOGE has destroyed institutions that will likely not recover in the next Democratic majority term. If they sell off the federal lands or damage them with resource extraction, Dems probably wont have the bandwidth to fix that either. Those are just two examples but there are probably many more.

[ttctciyf]

> seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?

Less obvious corruption.

[moralestapia]

Harvard does not have "the best and brightest" students and that's a meme that needs to die as is discriminatory to literally all the other students in the US and the planet.

[nebula8804]

You are nitpicking. It is an elite institution that still attracts elite class people or else it wouldn't be worth so much to so many groups. There are hundreds of universities in the US, many of which have no kind recognition of the kind Harvard has.

[zelphirkalt]

One could also call it a bubble. Last as long as it lasts, which is as long as the stakeholders believe in it.

I think your argument doesn't hold. Just because people still believe something to be the case, doesn't mean it really is the case. It being "worth so much to so many groups" just means they believe in it being worth as much. A well formed argument would come up with examples of the brightest hailing from Harvard and perhaps statistics about achievements of former Harvard students.

[nebula8804]

Only if you look at one aspect of the school: A bubble wouldn't produce a cadre of skilled people that move multiple fields forward. The elite nature of the institution comes from people maintaining that elite status through accomplishment. You don't need a "belief" when the school continually produces many examples of excellence. Thats just hard evidence.

[moralestapia]

>You are nitpicking.

I am doing the opposite, @kristopolous is the one who attached the "best and brightest" label to Harvard students. I am arguing that's unfair.

[genewitch]

I think it may have been an [un]intentional callback to Trump saying that about who "Mexico was sending over the border" - at least that's how I interpreted it.

[bko]

Harvard doesn't have higher academic standards for foreign students. So I don't think foreign students are any "better or brighter" than their American counterparts.

So if you can find equally qualified American students on the margin shouldn't you do so? I think an American university that benefits greatly from American taxpayers and institutions should primarily benefit American students. If you're picking truly exceptional student, that's one thing. But I don't think that's happening.

[jltsiren]

Academic standards are kind of irrelevant when it comes to Harvard undergraduate admissions.

Harvard is a tiny university at the absolute top of the prestige hierarchy. As far as they are concerned, every serious (non-legacy/donor) applicant is a truly exceptional student. At least to the extent it can be determined from the admission materials and a short interview. They could choose randomly from all good enough applicants with no noticeable impact on academic standards.

But Harvard is not in the business of educating the most deserving. Instead, they want to educate the ones who will be successful and influential in the future, and to give them the best networking opportunities possible. The standard joke is that if the admissions officer knew that the applicant would become a tenured professor at Harvard, they would reject the applicant for the lack of success. Most Harvard graduates fail to reach that standard, but it's better to choose a likely failure (and an unlikely unicorn) over a certain failure.

PhD admissions are another story. At that stage, Harvard starts caring a lot more about academic potential. They don't want to restrict their recruitment to the US, because Americans are only a small fraction of the people with access to good education. Especially because Americans are reluctant to do a PhD due to the low pay effectively mandated by public research funders.

[bko]

> As far as they are concerned, every serious (non-legacy/donor) applicant is a truly exceptional student.

I know it's fun to dunk on legacy admissions but legacy students are actually more qualified by objective measures than non legacy. It makes sense that some genetics that predisposes children to an academic environment gets passed on. Not to mention the fact that their parents value education. This holds up even when you compare them against their non legacy peers in the same parental income bracket.

https://mleverything.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-legacy-adm...

[ckemere]

I think in context “legacy” refers to the affirmative action boost given to children of (donating) alumni over better qualified unconnected peers.

[croes]

But foreign students pay foreign money which helps against the deficit.

On top of that many students stay in the US afterwards means a brain plus for the US and a loss their home country. These kind of braun drain is a big advantage for the US they know destroy.

[ThunderSizzle]

If that was the case, then these funding cuts wouldn't have any effect on Harvard.

[croes]

If your expenses are based on your income and your income includes government money, cuts on these will have an impact.

Same is true for income from foreign student tuition fees.

[chipsrafferty]

Notwithstanding the unfounded isolationist argument, having international students is valuable to the university and the domestic students. A diversity of life experiences, knowledge, backgrounds, etc. results in better educational outcomes. But you probably wouldn't understand that concept.

[kristopolous]

They don't have lower standards either.

I mean they will now with a candidate pool reduction of 96%...

The rest is kinda wild. I guess Ilya Sutskever should leave? Sergey Brin would have never started Google, Jony Ive would be in the UK, Jensen Huang and Nvidia would be hailing from Taipei, Elon Musk would be in Johannesburg, Linus Torvalds would still be in Finland, the Rasmussen brothers would have launched Google maps in the Netherlands, Satya Nadella would be in Hyderabad, the Broadcom CEO would be in Malaysia...

You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...

Not to mention say, the faculty of engineering at places like MIT https://www.eecs.mit.edu/role/faculty-cs/

To me places like Stanford and Caltech are world class schools that happen to be in the US. Over 90% not being American born is what I'd expect from a globally renown world class institution because that's what the world population looks like.

China has many programs to attract top global talent. If you want to fast track the transition from Silicon Valley to Beijing, kicking out the foreigners is an excellent move.

Graduate level coursework at Peking is already in English. All these scholars have to do is get on a plane.

[andrekandre]

  > You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...

just a guess but i'd assume these decisions are being made on an emotional/ideological basis, not long term viability, but maybe i'm missing something obvious...

[kristopolous]

Everyone's decisions are fundamentally ideological. Some ideologies are just more coherent

[eli_gottlieb]

> You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...

And that's why we call it MAGA Maoism.

[nagaiaida]

rather than say anything likely unconstructive myself in direct response to this, i would very much like to see you elaborate on your understanding of mao and what value and predictive power you find in this comparison.

[eli_gottlieb]

Maoism and Trumpism share a certain self-sabotaging ideological fetish for the virtues of rural life that expresses itself politically more in destructive resentment of urbanites and urban institutions than productive development of rural ones.

[labster]

It doesn’t actually matter if the foreign students are better or not: by having a mixed student body, with lots of cultures and backgrounds, students learn more from each other. They learn skills to work with other cultures, and ways of doing things that may be better.

Of course, in America’s future of autarky and Shogunate-style isolationism, those skills will no longer have any value, even to the elite. There’s no need to learn about other countries if everything we need is produced here and no one could ever threaten us once America is made great again. (/s maybe?)

[bko]

I don't know. A lot of foreign students from Harvard are Chinese. Seems kind of weird that they were found to discriminate against American Asians and then they import foreign Asian students. Goes against the whole we want diversity thing, no?

[intended]

That sentence is breath taking.

> A lot of foreign students from Harvard are Chinese. Seems kind of weird that they were found to discriminate against American Asians and then they import foreign Asian students.

How do I put this delicately - the Race part is not what is bringing the difference in lived experience.

[bko]

The university defines diversity broadly, encompassing race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic background, nationality, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity.

Don't gaslight me and pretend they don't focus a lot on race when figuring out their student body. They report on it and it's a huge distinguishing characteristic when looking at median standardized scores across diff characteristics. There's little difference between socio economic groups, gender, nationality etc. But if you look across just Asian and non Asian students, the scores are dramatically higher with Asians meaning that they have higher standards. Courts found this to be true

[ceejayoz]

A judge has already blocked the move.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-tr...

> A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities across the U.S.

[yandie]

I don't think this decision can force the Department of State to issue new visas for Havard students unfortunately. At least existing students *might* be alright...

[semiquaver]

This is not the same issue. Judges can be fast, but not that fast. Both the decision and this action against Harvard happened within an hour of eachother.

[dragonwriter]

> This is not the same issue.

It is not, but it isn't unrelated; this is about the individual actions for which Harvard's refusal to assist by proactively supplying information is the basis for the action against Harvard.

[kristjansson]

I believe they've taken a different tactic here - attacking Harvard's ability to enroll international students, not the students' status directly.

[ceejayoz]

The article states "existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status"; this injunction would appear to pause that.

[ty6853]

The semester is already over, many of them went home. They'll simply be refused when they try to come back.

[Animats]

That's a real issue. If you're on a student visa, and were planning on coming back in the fall, leaving the US for the summer may be a bad move. Entry to the US can be denied arbitrarily. Deporting someone is harder.

[benlivengood]

> Deporting someone is harder.

It used to be harder and mostly seems to be a matter of ICE finding the right door to break down now.

[AlecSchueler]

Deporting someone is just a matter of grabbing them off the street and shipping them out to El Salvador before the courts hear anything about it.

[chairmansteve]

Not only refused, they may be locked up for a couple of weeks, as has happened to various tourists.

[ty6853]

Sure, I was locked up by DHS/immigration, and I am a US citizen. CBP/ICE/HSI doesn't really need much of anything to lock you up, when they did it to me they told me I wasn't even under arrest.

[firesteelrain]

It’s hard to do an injunction if there is currently no harm.

[gtirloni]

ICE begs to differ.

[brazzy]

What judges say doesn't matter anymore to this administration. They'll just implement it anyway.

[klipt]

The house republicans have passed a bill that in effect lets Trump override the courts: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-hidden-provision-in-t...

[fluidcruft]

Presumably you mean it would if it were passed into law. The House passes all sorts of bullshit that dies in the Senate.

[klipt]

Hopefully it dies, but republicans do have a senate majority too.

[zappb]

They don’t have 60 senators which is required to pass anything besides the budget these days thanks to the filibuster.

[acbart]

This is the budget reconciliation bill.

[jmye]

If Republicans believe they will never lose the Senate, they can easily bypass the filibuster without 60 votes. To date, the adults in the room prevented either party from doing this for short term wins, but a) there are no adults in the room and b) it’s arguable the Senate will never again have a non-Republican majority (demographically, not a conspiracy theory).

[mousethatroared]

Nationwide injunctions are going the way of the dodo

[paulryanrogers]

With population outgrowing our capped judiciary, making access to courts increasingly pay to play, this means even less accountability for the executive branch.

[mousethatroared]

The judiciary doesn't have to be capped. Thats on Congress

[mperham]

It doesn’t matter, the damage is done. If you’re an international student, are you going to risk an El Salvador gulag?

[FooBarBizBazz]

Why do students need to be inside the US in order for Harvard to issue them a degree? Surely there is an international network -- collaborators abroad who could host students, etc, etc. For example , Harvard already has an infrastructure of exchange programs. It's not ideal for the students, but I don't see why they can't continue to "be Harvard students" from anywhere.

Hopefully, though, this is an "escalate to deescalate" thing, and this whole discussion will become moot.

[instagib]

Or gain legal status another way. Marriage, business, lottery, another college, etc.