Immigration

[TYLERTECHSAS]

Motion-detector machine guns on the wall....

anyone remember the 1986 Sci Fi flick "Aliens?" These babies rock!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS2PtmM9mwU

Nice!

This could also go in the “Snowflake and liberal educators” thread. 👍 Deport them all!

Published 1 hour ago
Update 6 mins ago

Berkeley students planning fraudulent course to circumvent ICE rules, avoid deportations
Students claim at least one faculty member is on board


Hundreds of students at the University of California -- Berkeley are discussing a plan to create a sham course solely to help international students on F-1 student visas avoid deportation under new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regulations -- and they say at least one faculty member is on board, Fox News has learned.

The plan, which would likely afoul of laws against immigration fraud if enacted in its current form, was hatched hours after ICE announced Monday that foreign students in the country are required to take some in-person instruction or they will not be allowed to legally remain in the country.

"berkeley students are creating a 1-unit, in-person, student-run class to help international students avoid deportation due to the new ICE regulations," a Berkeley Urban Studies student wrote in a now-deleted tweet, which has been archived by Google. "love my school sometimes."

The tweet was shared more than 25,000 times before it was taken down. It linked to a longer Facebook post stating that a member of the Berkeley community had "found a faculty member who will sponser [sic] this."

The Facebook post explicitly declared that the course is not intended to serve a broader educational purpose for the student body, and "is ONLY for students who are international and need a physical component to remain in the United States." A syllabus was being drafted, according to the post.

The post also stated that the planned course would "likely" be run "through the anthropology department," although the specifics of the course's substance and subject matter didn't appear to concern most Berkeley students discussing the matter online.

More

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ber...t-deportations

[johnnylightnin]

Centenary is making provisions to help students avoid this pointless deportation as well. I'm sure Tech will figure something out. More punitive stupidity from the white house. I get that nativists want to deport LEGAL aliens any chance they get, but I don't get how that jives with Matthew 25:41-45.

[inudesu]

I probably shouldn't share all of my thoughts about that guidance. . .

but I will say that it's pretty poor policy.

[MoonPieBlue]

... international students on F-1 student visas avoid deportation under new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) regulations ...

Is this truly a new regulation? I thought I read somewhere they had suspended the regulation during Spring and Summer. Have they always been required to have some on-campus presence or is this something new?

[inudesu]

Is this truly a new regulation? I thought I read somewhere they had suspended the regulation during Spring and Summer. Have they always been required to have some on-campus presence or is this something new?

There has always been a requirement that in order to maintain student visa status, you need to have a certain level of in-person requirement. This makes sense (why else do you need to be in the U.S.) even if it's increasingly out of step with the way schools offer programs. Essentially, you have to be enrolled in a certain number of hours and only one online course could count towards that requirement. There is probably a bigger picture debate to be had about whether it's time for some tweaks to the specifics of that regulation, but in a time without a global pandemic it still mostly works.

In mid-Spring, as schools were scrambling to protect students and communities from outbreaks and feeling the need to shut down or go online only to finish out the semester, these rules were relaxed. And of course, at that point most students had already been physically present in a classroom for at least part of the semester anyway. So for Spring and Summer schools (and students) had more freedom than normal - you could be online only due to the unusual circumstances (whether you remained physically here or went home).

Schools were hoping for similar flexibility for Fall. We have students who went home who had planned to return if the virus got under control, but who are now stuck (not many flights available, consulates closed so you can't get a new visa for entry, positive tests, outbreaks in the communities they'd be returning to, etc). We have other students who are in high risk populations and who now have to choose between physically attending class or boarding an airplane. And others who would be happy to leave, but can't get a flight out because U.S. infection rates are so high, their countries aren't allowing flights in. And of course, even for schools who hadn't already decided to be online only for Fall in an effort to protect their students and communities, you've got way more online programs and classes than usual - which will make it harder to find enough hours still offered in your major to meet the in-person requirements (which thankfully have been relaxed somewhat, although the guidance is pretty vague about some important practical considerations).

But I think the most dangerous and poorly considered piece of this thing is that if a school tries to return in an in-person or hybrid capacity, but looks up in mid-semester to see cases sky-rocketing and feels the need to pivot to online only just like almost everyone did in Spring - all their international students will have to leave. But if there is a situation where the pandemic is in a state that schools feel the need to shut down or go online only in October - is that a time to force a decent sized population of students to fly internationally? If they have been infected, we're spreading them out all over the world. If they haven't, but the numbers are spiking in their area, we're sending them to airports and onto airplanes to increase their chance of catching it. We're also disincentivizing schools from making that decision to shut down in cases where it might be warranted.

There have already been lawsuits. It's not good policy making. It's not clear, it's not helpful, it's not really helping with big picture policy goals or protections (well, other than the current administration's overall goals of slashing even legal immigration). This wasn't a situation ripe for abuse under the current circumstances. A student who was enrolled fulltime in-person for part of the Fall semester but has to change to online only because the University saw a public health risk isn't try to put anything over on anyone. They're not trying to skirt the rules or remain in the U.S. in bad faith. They're not stealing jobs or sneaking across borders. They're not under the radar. They're not even the ones making those decisions. They're just caught up in circumstances. This thing wasn't released in a timely manner, and it didn't seem to benefit from the delays.

It's a "one size fits none" approach that ignores reality, and maybe someday I'll post what I really think about it.

[MoonPieBlue]

Thanks inudesu for the detailed discussion. I was just confused as it appeared they were saying 'new' when I thought something had always been around. Would be interesting to see the thoughts behind the rule(s) originally were.

[dawg80]

Good discussion inudesu...as some of you may know my wife is a dean at NSU and they are meeting right now on this very topic. NSU has a particularly large foreign, mostly Columbian, student body contingent via CAPA, the college that includes all those hundreds of music majors. All the colleges have a rather significant foreign student enrollment, here on student visas. I am guessing a waiver will be issued allowing these students to remain without violation, even if it means mostly on-line classes, for the duration of this virus crisis.

BTW I predict, should Biden win, that the virus crisis will just suddenly disappear in November....

[inudesu]

I am guessing a waiver will be issued allowing these students to remain without violation, even if it means mostly on-line classes, for the duration of this virus crisis.

"Mostly on-line" might work. At least as long as the school doesn't go online completely. If they feel like they have to shut things down again mid-semester, there isn't really any provision for that.

[FriscoDog]

"Mostly on-line" might work. At least as long as the school doesn't go online completely. If they feel like they have to shut things down again mid-semester, there isn't really any provision for that.

There's another angle here that no one has mentioned and that is $$$$$. Most international students pay out of state tuition which means more money to the universities. Would this apply for online classes and if the students were not physically here? It's just a question, I don't know what the answer is, but I'm sure someone has thought about this impact.

[johnnylightnin]

There's another angle here that no one has mentioned and that is $$$$$. Most international students pay out of state tuition which means more money to the universities. Would this apply for online classes and if the students were not physically here? It's just a question, I don't know what the answer is, but I'm sure someone has thought about this impact.

My wife and I were talking about this earlier...not just with international students. If everything is online, what happens with dorms and food services. That's got to be a huge hit to most universities.

[dawg80]

My wife and I were talking about this earlier...not just with international students. If everything is online, what happens with dorms and food services. That's got to be a huge hit to most universities.

And parking tickets! they make a killing on that.

[inudesu]

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Li...pdates-/249124

[dawg80]

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Li...pdates-/249124

Just my personal opinion, but I think foreign students here on legit student visas should be given some kind of waiver until such time the virus is no longer a major threat. Which would coincide, I'm sure, with college campuses reopening and F2F classes resuming.

For the record, I presently don't have any foreign students as renters. Not saying I won't again, it's just the way things worked out this go-around. But, I have had plenty of such students in the past, and I think very highly of them. They are amazing young people, with ambition, and courage, and the will to plant themselves in another country, with language being a barrier for many of them, especially at first, and yet they push through it. I have always been a strong supporter of LEGAL immigration, which is why it pisses me off to see those who cheat their way in. Just look at the potential grief from this mess for those who seek to do it right. I hope some kind of compromise is worked out.

[inudesu]

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Li...pdates-/249124

Still lots of questions, but the order is rescinded.

https://www.nafsa.org/regulatory-inf...ance-fall-2020

[dawg80]

Still lots of questions, but the order is rescinded.

https://www.nafsa.org/regulatory-inf...ance-fall-2020

So I don't have to read all of that...can someone provide a summary of the pertinent aspects of this?

Thanks in advance.