In The Middle Of A Pandemic, ICE Says Foreign Students Must Attend Physical Classes If They Don't Want To Be Kicked Out Of The Country
from the bunch-of-assholes-who-should-be-forced-to-work-from-home dept
I guess the cruelty is the point.
Months after duping a bunch of foreign students into signing up for classes at a fake college run by ICE, ICE is now informing other foreign students here legitimately that their choices for the fall 2020 semester are:
1. Increase their risk of COVID exposure
2. GTFO
With COVID going through another spike after a brief downturn, there’s no reason to believe schools will be back to business as usual when studies resume in the fall. That’s going to be a problem if you’re here (legally!) on a student visa. ICE — the agency that gets to decide these things — has issued its new guidance. And that guidance says studying from home is no longer an option, even if that’s the only option colleges will be providing. (h/t Aaron Reich)
Nonimmigrant F-1 and M-1 students attending schools operating entirely online may not take a full online course load and remain in the United States. The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States. Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction to remain in lawful status. If not, they may face immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings.
This opens up students here lawfully to all sorts of negative consequences.
First, transferring isn’t always an option. And even if it is, it’s rarely an easy option. No college likes to lose a paying customer, so the process is far from straightforward.
If there are nothing but online classes available when universities reopen, students can attempt to wait it out and hope physical classes reopen before removal proceedings are initiated. Given ICE’s thirst for punishing students here on visas, it seems the agency would make the easiest removals a priority, ignoring the more complicated cases that involve the “worst of the worst” and their pending criminal charges. Civil proceedings are easier than criminal proceedings, and ICE has made it clear — through its fake college and other efforts — which one it prefers.
Once students are removed or leave voluntarily, they’re faced with more obstacles. Not every country provides easy access to broadband connections. And if there isn’t a connection problem, there might be a software problem. American schools rely on American tech companies for remote learning. Any number of countries have blocked or limited access to American services (like Google’s suite of educational/productivity products) for any number of reasons, including their ability to host content students’ home countries don’t like.
The best case scenario still involves students being forced to endure the hassle of finding a college offering classes they can physically attend in the middle of a pandemic and having that university accept their transfer request. Whatever funding or grants are in play might not transfer as smoothly, leaving students underfunded. And that’s not even touching the expenses of physically moving elsewhere in the country to continue their studies.
Issuing this guidance in the middle of ongoing COVID-related lockdowns indicates ICE is willing to disrupt the lives of foreigners who have broken no laws just because it can. Yet another reason ICE deserves to go the way of your local police department: stripped of funding and repurposed to help, rather than harm.
Filed Under: covid-19, dhs, distance learning, foreign students, ice, pandemic, visas
Comments on “In The Middle Of A Pandemic, ICE Says Foreign Students Must Attend Physical Classes If They Don't Want To Be Kicked Out Of The Country”
Foreign students are here under the grace and kindness of the US government. They have no "right" to be here other than what the government gives them. If the government wants them in classes, that is entirely their right, even if it is stupid or you don’t like it. It may not be fair, but as any mature adult knows when they graduate from college, life isn’t fair. Get over it.
Re:
For what reason other than pettiness borne of xenophobia would the U.S. have to kick out students willing to come here, make use of U.S. resources, and ostensibly recommend those resources to others when they go back home?
Re: Re: student visa's
Why would a foreign student whose college classes have transitioned to 100% vitrual be required to live in the same location as the college campus? Why wouldn’t they be able to take online classses from their own homes? If they can afford to come to the U.S. and pay for college, rent, food, etc, then they can afford to do their coursework from their own home country.
Re: Re: Re: student visa's
If you are assuming that the person is from Canada, this will probably work… for a majority of the other countries out here they will need to deal with:
Latency – Trying to communicate over long distances; especially from far away countries (India, China, Australia, etc) is killer
Timezones — Hope you don’t mind them also having to get up at 2AM when they have a 2PM class
Bandwidth — Some places like island nations are bandwidth capped due to Satellite being their only options
Firewalls — Russia and China block access to lots of services — same with India. Good luck watching that You Tube when Russia arbitrarily bans it…
Content Restrictions — I can’t imagine taking an LGBTQ Studies class in Russia or China…
So, that is my short list off the top of my head why this plan isn’t tenable in a lot of cases…
Re: Re: Re:2 student visa's
Well, there were more illegal immigrants from Canada than from other countries, so…
Re: Re: Re:3 student visa's
Don’t tell the ICE that. We might assume from their actions that they’re only targeting non-white people and/or people from south america but that might just be the first bullet point on their list.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they started giving out citizenship tests and tossed anyone failing that out of the country, even if the person in question already had actual citizenship or not.
Re: Re: Re: student visa's
"Why would a foreign student whose college classes have transitioned to 100% vitrual be required to live in the same location as the college campus?"
Why would they not be allowed to if they wish to, given that the current pandemic response was not an issue when this was agreed to originally, and the requirement to attend virtually is (hopefully) a temporary measure to protect those and the peers that they are still working alongside?
Re: Re: Re: student visa's
"Why wouldn’t they be able to take online classses from their own homes?"
Because, for one thing, the US network infrastructure often can’t take that. As soon as you go over the atlantic from europe for instance, packet loss, latency and jitter spike to unbelievable levels. There are a few US universities who can indeed successfully run courses online because they’re basically sitting almost on top of a network trunk but it’s not guaranteed. I shan’t mention names but AT&T, Comcast and Charter have much to answer for when it comes to the US telecommunications infrastructure being some twenty years overdue for a comprehensive overhaul. Anyone working in an international company knows how well it pans out when you try to include the US office in the teleconference.
More importantly, and I shouldn’t have to tell anyone who is a college graduate this, college is not just education – it’s early networking, getting to know professors and future colleagues personally. The guy you held study sessions with over coffee or pounded a few beers with in the weekend might be the guy you cooperate with to bring the next google to the market. Aside from college teaching you how to do things it also teaches you – sometimes more importantly by far, who else is also doing that.
And when it comes to studying in another nation it’s also about getting to know that nation – customs, laws, their markets, what people want, by living among them.
It’s honestly terrifying that americans have forgotten completely what they once taught other nations.
Re: Re: Re:2 student visa's
"More importantly, and I shouldn’t have to tell anyone who is a college graduate this, college is not just education"
I get the feeling from his comment that either he didn’t graduate, or he took an easy major that had no such value in the real world and is still bitter that he squandered his time there.
"And when it comes to studying in another nation it’s also about getting to know that nation – customs, laws, their markets, what people want, by living among them."
…and using that knowledge to benefit the host country when studies are completed. For reference, this is the kind of thing that he’s advocating not happening in the US – those students should just go home and set up their companies there… https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2018/11/05/international-students-are-founding-americas-great-startups/
Re: Re: Re:3 student visa's
"I get the feeling from his comment that either he didn’t graduate, or he took an easy major that had no such value in the real world and is still bitter that he squandered his time there."
I’d say he probably never set his foot anywhere near a campus. It becomes pretty obvious, almost from day one, that the benefits of being able to physically navigate to social network nodes in your chosen field is a VERY major benefit about attending college. There’s a reason you very rarely see successes in any field coming out of self-study and a very big part of it is that through your study time you have access to internships and networks you normally wouldn’t know existed. Simply by shooting the breeze with your professors and course peers.
"……and using that knowledge to benefit the host country when studies are completed. For reference, this is the kind of thing that he’s advocating not happening in the US…"
Yup. Essentially the ICE is working double-time to chase all those pesky new entrepreneurs out of the US. And leave the new perception of the US that instead of being the land of opportunity it is the land of grifters and con men where they take your money and then run you out of the door.
"Trump University – now an all-american institution standard!"
Re: Re: Re:4 student visa's
"I’d say he probably never set his foot anywhere near a campus."
Maybe. But anecdotally I’ve seen plenty of students who basically didn’t think about it in those terms. They were just told they needed a degree to get a decent job, and assumed that having the piece of paper at the end of the course was good enough. Hence, the bitterness about the "life’s not fair" comments when they’re informed that it doesn’t simply work that way and they still have to flip burgers.
Someone who’s taking a degree because they’re driven to work effectively in a certain field will take the other aspects into account. But, lots of students still haven’t worked that out at graduation.
Re: Re: Re:5 student visa's
"But anecdotally I’ve seen plenty of students who basically didn’t think about it in those terms."
Hence my use of "probably". Anecdotally I find that STEM graduates understand – or, often, are informed – about the advantages university brings them.
But yea, I get that there are a lot of people who think what they need is just a piece of paper showing they have a bachelors degree in liberal arts or a thesis on the use of vowels in mongolian throat-singing or whatever struck them as vitally important knowledge to bring to the job market…
"But, lots of students still haven’t worked that out at graduation."
Your point duly noted, with a heavy heart.
Re: Re: Re:6 student visa's
"But yea, I get that there are a lot of people who think what they need is just a piece of paper showing they have a bachelors degree in liberal arts or a thesis on the use of vowels in mongolian throat-singing or whatever struck them as vitally important knowledge to bring to the job market…"
Well, it’s not that they think that specifically, but rather the way to market has been set up for a lot of people. Many employers, especially in the US, won’t consider applications in many fields from people who haven’t got a degree. Many of these positions don’t actually require any such thing in terms of the knowledge and experience that a degree would provide, it’s just slowly become the baseline standard for jobs that 20 years ago would have accepted high school graduates.
So, the expectation is that people need to get a degree, no matter the subject. Lots of people then go into college without any particular career or academic aspirations, they just know they need that bit of paper to be hired. Given that, they will not think of the future career path, they will just pick a major in a subject that they find personally interesting, or believe will be an easy one to get.
Then, they get out of college loaded with debt, and find there’s such a glut of new graduates that their actual job hunting process is no easier than it was before they got the degree. They meet the bare minimum, but because they weren’t targeting a particular career path the guaranteed job prospects they expected at the end of their studies don’t exist. So, they become bitter when they’re told they wasted those years and money at college and that life isn’t fair. Especially since they still have no specific career ambitions and just need a job to pay off the now-useless debt.
Personal responsibility still applies and they should learn from their mistakes, but I don’t think there’s any denying that they were usually given bad advice and no guidance over how to get actual value out of their degree.
Re: Bait and Switch much?
Arbitrarily changing the laws just to spit in the face of a vulnerable group is insane. ICE didn’t make the rules to get these students over here for cross-cultural exchange, learning, American indoctrination, etc. They just saw an opening to exploit to help their numbers.
I’m sure Stephen Miller’s boner can be seen from space as he revels in the number of non-white non-americans he’s fucking over just because he can.
Re: Re: Bait and Switch much?
Technically speaking, this is NOT arbitrarily changing any laws. It is actually a declaration that they intend to enforce the existing laws.
The existing laws say that a student visa is only valid for learning programs that require a physical presence. Online only programs are not eligible, and never were.
While I personally would have granted a temporary exception for this next year (though only for continuing students, not for new enrollment), they are on very solid legal ground.
Re: Re: Re: Bait and Switch much?
Anyone: "Why did you do this?"
Any cartoon villain ever: "Because I can."
Yep, ICE is definitely in business for the cruelty alone.
Re: Re: Re: Bait and Switch much?
If it’s just the terminology, then there’s an easy way around that. The college I work at still differentiates online and remote (campus) courses. Just because classes that are normally taught on campus are taught online doesn’t mean they’re "online courses." An online course is a course that’s been vetted by a curriculum committee to run fully online.
Re: Re:
1) The government doesn’t "allow" foreign students out of "grace and kindness." This is just a delusional thought.
2) Criticizing government decisions is like, the entire point of having a government that can be criticized, so your comment essentially says nothing.
Re: Re:
Trump on Twitter:
"When foreigners attend our great colleges & want to stay in the U.S., they should not be thrown out of our country. – Aug 18, 2015"
Re: Re: Re:
There’s always a tweet.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think I’d use a short-voweled variation of "tweet" here.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Better than the short-boweled variation of "tweet".
Re: Re: Re:
"Trump on Twitter:"
Since when has Trump failed to do a 180 on any tweet blurb which wasn’t intended to cater to bigotry and malice?
I mean, it’s pretty clear that when about 90-95% of his tweets are irrelevant, off-topic, outright false or just a copy-paste of what some firebrand conspiracy nut demagogue on OANN said the other night you should really take his statements with a solid shovel of salt. Donald just bein’ Donald, in other words.
I think he’s just tossing his tweets out at random and that one out of dozens which makes Breitbart and OANN lyrical is the one he then makes the core of his campaign.
Re: Re:
If this were some natural process like getting cancer, "life isn’t fair" would certainly apply (though a more compassionate and empathetic approach should be applied). This is human beings intentionally fucking with other human beings because they can.
Life isn’t fair, but human beings can choose to be.
Re: Re: Re:
And guess what human beings working in an institution answering to Trump would choose. I mean, apart from those who choose changing to an honorable job.
Re: Re: Re: Applications of Pournelle's Iron Law
Any institution old enough will have agents and staffers that serve the survival of the institution rather than serving the institution’s purpose (e.g. fairness to clients or the public). This is why all sizeable religious institutions (e.g. churches larger than 500 people) not only have sex scandals, but cover-ups. The really big ones have a system to quiet sex scandals, often at the cost of betraying the victim.
Re: Re:
Even better than "getting over it" is to instead of being lazy/sloppy, we take on the hard work of trying to improve. Some of that involves talking it over with others. Hope this helps, random internet person who thinks a government is graceful and/or kind.
Would you call yourself a fan of "big government"?
Re: Re:
If this were a circumstance arising naturally out of life you might’ve had a point but you don’t so no.
This is ICE deciding because it’s a day ending in Y that they feel like making immigrant students lives more difficult and that has been ICE’s MO since it’s creation. Making people’s lives unnecessarily difficult. Life may not be fair but we as humans sure as hell can be.
What makes it worse is we’re STILL in the midsts of a pandemic and any sane person or government operating in "kindness and grace" would make exceptions for students having to take classes online if for no other reason than to keep the curve flat. What ICE is telling these students is risk getting COVID and spreading it to others or start packing.
Your comment is entirely tone-deaf to what’s going on in the world right now where an exception for taking online classes is not only acceptable but necessary right now.
Re: "the grace and kindness of the US government"
[Peons] are here under the grace and kindness of the US government
So according to Anonymous Coward anyone the regime does not outlaw has been given a mercy out of grace and kindness.
Can we skip the pretenses now and accept that the US is still a stratified feudal system?
Or maybe we can accept that even immigrants should be afforded basic liberties and refuge. Wasn’t there a statue and a poem?
Re: Re: "the grace and kindness of the US government"
"Wasn’t there a statue and a poem?"
Give it time. I’m sure there will at some point emerge some nitwit eager to use false equivalence to make the case that "If we can’t have a statue representing Nathan Bedford Forrest as the hero he was then we should just ship that french bint back to Paris!"
Anyone remember Ashcroft and how he wanted the statue of Lady Justice torn down?
Re: your stupid comment
Who is this government you refer to? The government is the people of the USA’s servant not some anointed king that lords over us. You are correct. No one has a "right" to come here to go to college. There are many day to day activities none of us including American citizens have a "right" to. However, foreign students have been studying here for over a century. This practice is beneficial to them and to us. They get an education and get a look of how American life is. We get to meet them and see that they are people like us. A different culture but in this educational setting young Americans get to interact with them. Also, they pay out of state or out of country tuition which is normally substantially higher but receive the same education that an in state student receives at a lower price.
As I stated your comment is stupid. But I have to say I do not think you are stupid. You have enough intelligence to give yourself a screen name that describes you perfectly!
Re: Re:
AC,
Wow, courageous..
Are you willing to be the teacher? Educator? School nurse?
THEN you can do it.. no matter what you may complain about.
Its now your job.
And what you say is as Funny as Mr. Trumps comments..
As 60% Plus are kept in the USA. Few go back home of their own recourse. And most who do stay get paid LESS, then a US born person who knows the laws/regs/ and how to look up the Wages of Equal jobs, and wont listen to the BS about startup jobs.
So who to blame for your Job loss?? The Gov.??, Corps??, Schools?
Once you figure it out, come back and tell us.
Re: Re:
They were granted a temporary right. You don’t get to change the rules in the middle of the game. Get over yourself.
Re: Re:
And the reason why that bit of character building has devolved into a trite, overused quote is because cunts like you think that "life isn’t fair" is meant to be a carte blanche excuse to be an asshole.
Re: Re:
"Foreign students are here under the grace and kindness of the US government"
Yes, they are. The main reason for that is because they benefit the US economy and educational institutions.
For what reason other that idiocy and xenophobia, should their lives be placed at risk to get the education they have been promised in return for such a benefit?
Re: Re: Re:
I don’t understand that question. Why wouldn’t idiocy and xenophobia do the trick?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Why wouldn’t idiocy and xenophobia do the trick?"
I think PaulIT is somehow hoping that the ICE (and the poster to which he responded) might have loftier goals than what you’d expect of a beer-sodden mob of inbred trailer-trash bigots. Or, more likely, he’s asking a rhetorical question, which probably went right over the OP’s head with a "Whoosh".
The ICE has been run by a Trump stooge for years. To find the height the bar of standards is placed at by now you need an oil drill and patience.
The more appropriate followup here would be Why isn’t the ICE being tarred and feathered? It’s not as if we’re short of documented evidence regarding their state of humanity and rationality. In a saner world no matter the given reason stealing a child from its parents and keeping it in a kennel cage isn’t what you’d expect from "law" enforcement. And that’s just where they got started.
The reason the ICE isn’t under heavier fire, of course, is because the Trump administration is just that sewer which just keeps handing out situations to be upset about. I’m not sure I ever saw a government coming up with the idea that you can run away from every unacceptable overreach or abuse simply by continually presenting new, even more damaging situations people can get upset about. And yet that’s how the current administration maintains cruising speed.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
That seems like a stretch.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"That seems like a stretch."
Well, I did say it’s more likely his question was rhetorical. Hard to tell, of course, since some of the people we keep addressing DO appear to need someone to point out that putting student lives at risk is not beneficial. Some corollary of Poe’s Law no doubt.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Why wouldn’t idiocy and xenophobia do the trick?"
It might work, I’m just saying that there’s no other logical reason for doing it.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
"I’m just saying that there’s no other logical reason for doing it."
It’s arguments like these that make me remember Nietzsche’s old saying about staring into the abyss. Except by now the abyss isn’t just staring back. It’s doing victory poses standing on the graves of humanitarian philosophers. And photo ops in front of churches.
Re: Re:
"Foreign students are here under the grace and kindness of the US government."
…except for all the ones paying good money for US college tuition who are now being told to risk their lives or get the F out of the US.
I must say this does incentivize european students to stick with Oxford rather than spring for the Harvard grant. Good for us europeans, I guess, because the ICE has now told every burgeoning european genius to stay the hell out of the US.
"It may not be fair, but as any mature adult knows when they graduate from college, life isn’t fair."
So what you’re saying is that foreigners who pay the college tuition and/or acquire the grant should expect that a US guarantee might as well be written on a goodyear tire? Good to know.
"Get over it."
I’m sure we will. From the national standpoint of non-US nations having every young genius realize the US is not a good place to work or study is completely beneficial. This is a far cry from past times when the US was still viewed as a land of opportunity rather than the sad conglomerate of hate, malice and fear which has been emerging in recent years.
Re: Re: Re:
It doesn’t take a genius to come to this conclusion these days.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"It doesn’t take a genius to come to this conclusion these days."
True enough, but I think the lesser minds moving over to join the growing pool of dumbass motherf_ckers floating around stateside (to paraphrase the late lamented George Carlin) won’t mean much one way or the other.
This is just one more of the MANY not-so-subtle ways the US has been chipping away at what used to be significant factors to its growth and greatness. Hell, european nations had the "brain drain" of smart people going to american universities and businesses at the top of their political agenda in the 90’s.
Between handing away the manufacturing advantage to China in the 70’s and stopping the influx of this generation of great minds today I’m wondering what the US will look like in 2050. I’d say there’ll be time to reverse that course, but best case scenario the next president is Biden.
At that time we’ll probably all be outraged over some populist PM somewhere in Congo or Zimbabwe making waves about white trash coming to his country from the north american shithole.
Re: Re:
The problem with that, AC, is that violating a quarantine order is a criminal offense, one that can result in the cancellation of a student visa.
ICE is quite literally entrapping students, by forcing them to violate their visa one way or another.
I thought Trump was such a good business man?
A lot of those students are kids from rich parents that spend a lot of money here, besides college tuition.
They rent/buy expensive apartments or houses, buy cars, jewelry clothes etc. Why would you evict them from the country?
Re:
“They’re not the white—er, right kind of people.” — Trump, probably
Re: Re: Re:
But… I hear Trump isn’t either
(/s is for sarcasm right? or is it the general marker for all kind of humor that isn’t meant to be taken literally?)
Re: Re: Re: Re:
/s is for sarcasm yes. And normally it shouldn’t be needed.
Any discussion revolving around Trump however, hits Poe’s Law so hard even professional comedians are on record as saying there’s just no way of making a parody of Trump which doesn’t sound and act exactly like something the real Trump might actually do.
Hence the /s is needed because even if you start calling for gas chambers and death squads against american black and mexican people who are all antifan terrorists out to destroy the world as we know it…there will be several pro-trump adherents who’ve already stated that in earnest.
It’s perhaps a sign of the times that what used to be crap bad political satirists used as exaggerated hyperbole now emerges from the mouths of actual politicians and civil servants under the current regime.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Look, it’s been a long time since Tom Lehrer stated that political satire became redundant when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. These days political satire is not merely redundant but has fallen behind. The "political speech" rules of services like Facebook and Twitter mean that you aren’t even allowed to post the same kind of crap as "satire" than when you are being serious.
You cannot channel, say, Hitler as a satirist without getting banned. As a politician, you can.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"Look, it’s been a long time since Tom Lehrer stated that political satire became redundant when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace prize."
Oh, for the good old days. At least when Kissinger got the peace prize it was outrageous enough to laugh at.
"The "political speech" rules of services like Facebook and Twitter mean that you aren’t even allowed to post the same kind of crap as "satire" than when you are being serious."
True enough, because no matter how out there the claim pot odds are some politician has already said it and doubled down on it with an "I don’t kid".
"You cannot channel, say, Hitler as a satirist without getting banned. As a politician, you can."
That…hurt more than it probably should have. Every now and then it just hits home what sort of crap is considered "normal" these days.
Re: I thought Trump was such a good business man?
ICE just opened the floodgates to selectively enforce whatever they want. I’ll bet students who were sent to technical universities will be the first to get the boot. Their parents aren’t as wealthy as their Ivy League counterparts and the schools aren’t near as well prepared to cater to the in-person class rules.
Re: I thought Trump was such a good business man?
They already spent money and can’t take the benefits of that spent money with them. That’s the business behind business.
But i see the clear sarcasm in your title. Those who are xenophobic racist twits have a lot of sway with the business-orientated and "small government" sorts who co-opted each other to form a sometimes-majority that gets their voice into government. Now sets of that group have been infected or reinfected with the same old-timey bullshit.
I guess ICE wants to do some amateur bio-terrorism.
The Universities that have these students should offer classes that are either fully on line or with a requirement that you come to a class once a semester to sign in and leave. Students with visas would sign up for the latter.
ICE, protecting America from being great again.
Try Going Home From The US
To add to the cruelty, a large number of flights out of the US have been cancelled. Many countries have barred travel from the US, and the result is that transit to those countries is very difficult. A student who is forced to leave the US may not be able to find a way to leave the country. It is a perfect storm of pettiness and cruelty.
Re:
ICE will give them a trip out of the country. But that doesn’t mean the trip will be to their home country.
Re: Re: 'They're brown, that's all we need to know'
No worries, I mean all those shithole countries and the people that come from them are basically the same anyway, so one is as good as the other right? /poe
(Ugh, even parodying the evil that is ICE leaves me feeling slimy…)
Re: Re: Re:
"But that doesn’t mean the trip will be to their home country."
Look, if they’re white surely any airport in europe or russia will do, right? Or kick them over to Canada.
If they’re black or latin just shove ’em in a container and pack them on any cargo boat heading elsewhere. It’s probably how they got here in the first place. Right? Right.
/s because honest to Chtulhu Hamilton’s already been saying shit to that effect with apparent genuine intent.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Canada?
Why would we ……..
You know what?
We took in those so called Haitian refugees when ICE was ready to send them back to that open sewer of humanity so a few hundred engineers and scholars ready to study would be freely accepted.
A number of colleges and universities have exchange programs so a few tweeks and we would be ready to go.
So send them over already 😉
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Wasn’t there an open letter or op-ed Canada issued way back when when some two million iranian professionals fled Khomeini just to conveniently fill a dearth of doctors and engineers in the great white north?
Unfortunately that’s not likely to happen this time around. I doubt the ICE want to deport foreigners to places where they might be treated with humanity and compassion.
I think that goes against their mission statement.
A solution
Perhaps colleges and universities could offer a single free, attendance mandatory class on public health and safety, for all foreign and domestic students. It could cover topics like washing your hands, not touching your face, wearing a face mask to prevent the spread of disease when you are sick and need to go out, or when its flue season doing the same all the time, etc. Maybe they could even name it Furtherance of Universal Intensive Corona Evasion.
Many colleges depend on revenue from foreign students, colleges are facing a financial crisis,
America is going to a massive rise in covid 19
case, s , and ice think a its the right time to force students to attend class, s in person.
IS there anyone who is not stupid in charge of Ice.
colleges are still working out how they will reopen,
and they are still not sure what precautions they
will have to take to keep staff and students safe from
the virus
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Your on the right path… But the point of the rule isn’t to inflict pain on the students (it is a bonus though), it’s to force colleges to return to normal, economic activity producing behavior, as if the pandemic is over. They are hedging their bets on the generally better health of college aged students won’t spike the death rate, or overwhelm the hospitals. Just like pushing to end stay home orders way too quickly, and refusal to wear masks as well as mandate them nationwide; it’s all about creating an illusion that everything is just fine, especially because election season will be getting serious in the fall. And while campuses probably lend themselves to much better physical spacing in the classroom, where college students live, both on and off campus, as well as general college lifestyle, coronavirus will spread faster than in nursing homes and meat packing plants. Exponentially faster.
And the Trump administration has all of higher education by the short and curlies, which we all know gives that segment of "society" an intense sadistic pleasure given their hate for the educated elite and liberals, because schools depend on the full tuition that foreign students pay to cover a lot of operating costs and provide reduced or free tuition to low income students. And while I think colleges need major restructuring to bring tuition down, this won’t fix anything. This is wrong and immoral.
The one thing that I don’t get is, if schools are indoctrinating kids to hate the US, churning out elite liberal snowflakes, and Republicans often drool over dismantling public education in favor of privatization, they sure are eager to get kids back to dystopia.
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You’re assuming there is an actual plan. In Nixon’s time there might actually have been one.
The Trump administration however, consists of one thin-skinned man-child surrounding himself with advisors and executive whose only skill is saying "Yes sir, may I say how radiant you are this day!" and whose policy is dictated completely by his perception of what his voter base wants.
It’s not impossible that the sole reason the ICE is going after college students is a spontaneous whimsy simply because they’re the "intellectual elite" and trumps fan base hates people who are too book learnt.
There’s no "plan" behind any of Trump’s actions. There never was. He just keeps going with whatever scam or story will keep him afloat another day or see him through exactly one scheme. The exact same way he’s done things for some 40 years now.
And the same way there is of course similarly no plan behind the actions of Trump’s appointees who all have their own brand of self-service (like Pai) or malice (like Barr or Miller).
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Well clearly there’s never any sort of cohesive, specific and direct plan of action coming from Trump. I mean, FFS, look at his word vomit answer to the softball question of what he wants to achieve in a second term.
But there is one thing Trump does understand, because he’s a narcissist, and that is image. He knows he can’t declare mission accomplished on the virus if people are walking around in masks, if schools and businesses are closed. So he throws Twitter tantrums, demanding economies and schools and churches open, that everyone votes in person. He demands the press Corp chairs be moved back together, ends temperature checks, and is careful to avoid being seen with anyone wearing a mask. It’s all part of an illusion.
I’m sure the specific idea came from some henchman, and was pitched to Trump as a way to hurt both immigrants and college elite if they don’t bend to his will, which brought a year of joy to his eye.
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"I mean, FFS, look at his word vomit answer to the softball question of what he wants to achieve in a second term."
I did. I’ll give him this; how he can simultaneously do the confused rambling of a dozen geriatrics with just one voice is an art in itself. All he lacks is a flatulist or two accompanying him and the vaudevillian image is complete.
"So he throws Twitter tantrums, demanding economies and schools and churches open, that everyone votes in person. He demands the press Corp chairs be moved back together, ends temperature checks, and is careful to avoid being seen with anyone wearing a mask. "
It feels really strange having to take out Hanlon’s Razor – Mine is getting rustier by the day – But I somehow doubt Trump has the coherence of mind to plan that far. Bear in mind that this is a man whose "image" is broken ten times a day, usually by his own actions.
I pose another hypothesis – that just as he has done for the last 40 years of his life he stays afloat entirely by persistent marathon fast-talk. He’s like a septic tank bottle rocket hovering on the steady stream of bullshit it expels without pause. It gives no one the option to catch a break and leaves everyone stunned and apathetic about just where they’d even start fact-checking his nonsense. Upset about his fling with David Duke? Hell, he’s issued about a thousdand bloopers since, every last one of them of equal calibre. Where do you even start?
And just as he’s always done he’ll cheerfully fit anything he notices people talking about into his random-walk narrative. He loves Fox and OANN simply because that’s where he gets one-liners and wild conspiracies he can package in a metric ton of verbal diorrhea, false starts, irrelevant side jumps…and dribble it all over anyone unfortunate to be around him when he opens his mouth.
"I’m sure the specific idea came from some henchman, and was pitched to Trump as a way to hurt both immigrants and college elite if they don’t bend to his will, which brought a year of joy to his eye."
I think he’s too self-centered to even make for a good bigot, really. He loves himself too much to even acknowledge that other people exist other than as props for his amusement, let alone to bring any emotion strong enough to count as hate to the table.
No, the ones he absolutely hates are the ones who ruin his day. TikTok and young punks ensuring he showed up to empty seats at one of his speeches, for instance.
The ones with tears oh joy in their eyes would be the cadre of brownnosing opportunists he’s surrounded himself with who ARE people who make Coulter and Alex Jones look like rational bleeding-heart liberals. No doubt these moral midgets have pitched him a few ideas but I’m fairly sure that man is impervious to advice – no matter where it comes from.
I don’t know what percent of classes have to be in-person to qualify a visa holder for staying but it should be possible for a university to create a in person class in a large auditorium or empty sports arena so that students can maintain proper safe distancing while attending an in person class. Or a class could have a mandatory in person "Expectations" lecture followed up with a series of on-line guidance sessions. Many possibilities if the schools want to keep the money flowing in from visa holding students.
Other problems
Other problems include –
Timezone issues – Some students may have to take online US classes in the middle of the night.
Once these universities start having on-site classes again, will ICE let them come back? or will they have to re-apply to be admitted to the US all over again?
Re: Other problems
I’d put these under the "Big Two" problems, not "Other Problems."
"Other" problems include things like freedom of expression: it’s possible that some of a student’s class discussion may be illegal in their country of origin. So while their country may be fine with them learning abroad, they won’t be too happy when the internet filter picks up evidence of them being linked to illegal discussions required to complete their coursework.
'Fuck you, that's why.'
Ah ICE, never passing up a chance to go out of their way to be cruel and sadistic not because they must, but simply because they can.
Re: Because they can
It’s pretty much how the Schutzstaffel developed their reputation, also their wives’ predilection for collecting human-skin lampshades. I guess that comes later.
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Too disgusting to touch or share space with alive, excellent trophies when dead.
The criminally insane hypocrisy of these types.
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For those types, people stop being people after death. They become bodies — things, if you will. They would be forced to reckon with hurting people. But things? Nobody really gives a shit about things.
Don’t call it hypocrisy. Call it sociopathy.
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I rather doubt they view the "others" as people when they are still alive.
This opens up students here lawfully to all sorts of negative consequences.
Well, this being a lawful order is highly debatable. But yes,yes it does.
Let’s see if universities are willing to step up to their core mission and conduct classes just for those affected. People can wear masks. They can sit far apart.
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And carry out online teaching at the same time. How would you feel about your hours being doubled?
I wonder if this includes students from Saudi Arabia
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Shh, they are the ‘other white meat’…
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Good question.Maybe some other foreign nationals would not suffer any enforcement as well.
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"I wonder if this includes students from Saudi Arabia"
If history provides the example the Saudi Arabian students will all have their visas automagically renewed anyway. Hell, consider that the response of the FBI after 9/11 was to go balls to the wall on protective detail escorting all the well-known family members of affluent saudis to airports just to spare them the oner of being investigated for collusion with their cousins and known friends ramming airplanes into buildings…
The saudis will be fine.
And what if those students’ home countries are not accepting travel from shithole-led countries like the US?
At least in Massachusetts where there are so many colleges/universities and therefore students, the AG is promising to sue.
From Twitter:
Maura Healey
@MassAGO
·
Not on my watch. This is just another cruel (& illegal) attempt by the Trump Admin & ICE to stir up uncertainty & punish immigrants. Our state is home to thousands of international students who shouldn’t fear deportation or health risks in order to get an education. We will sue.
I hope institutions will jump in and offer Covid-19 safe physical classes (and examinations), required just for those affected by this latest troll of ICE.
The only surprise about this is it took them so long. They tried to kick out children who were in America for life saving medical care, there is no depth they won’t sink to.
another ploy to back up Trumps ‘hate attitude towards everyone except born in the USA, white supremicists’!!
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You think? I thought it was another ploy to kill more Americans by making Covid worse.. Two birds?
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Also where you are born makes no difference to racists, it’s just easier to get rid of the people who aren’t born in the U.S. and convenient to pretend that is what it’s about
I still think..
I still think that this continent,
was doing MUCH better before the EU white people got here.
"I discovered this land for my country (insert blank here)"
AS IF NO ONE WAS HERE??
Which created the concept of PROPERTY RIGHTS in a nation(many nations really) that didnt HAVE ANY, and were fine with it.
Then Disease/religion/farming/Imported plants/animals/Rats/grass(we had our own but you didnt like it)/grains/horse/cattle came..
And killed off the open prairies, the forest, the Animals you didnt like, and the ones you were scared of. Took land as your own, without Finding the nearest Dept of land control..
I could go on, but it would soon be larger then the Library of congress.
Harvard, MIT sue Trump admin to block deportation of online-only students
Despite the pandemic, there are strict district rules. There’s no particular desire to learn, as opposed to indigenous students.
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"There’s no particular desire to learn, as opposed to indigenous students."
I’ll give you chance to explain that part and provide your evidence before I call you an idiot.