On February 2, the leaders of almost 50 U.S. universities despatched a daring open letter to President Donald Trump.
“We write as presidents of main American schools and universities to induce you to rectify or rescind the latest government order,” the letter acknowledged. “If left in place, the order threatens each American greater schooling and the defining rules of our nation.”
If solely this pushback had occurred in newer reminiscence. These phrases are from a letter despatched not this yr, in response to the a number of assaults on educational freedom that Trump has issued in his second time period, however in February 2017 — in response to Trump’s ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority international locations. This yr, regardless of the president’s brazen January 29 government order to revoke the visas of scholars concerned in Palestine solidarity protests, those self same universities have remained largely silent
It’s hardly shocking. Whereas most of the insurance policies issued in Trump’s first administration provoked plentiful and full-throated public opposition from liberal establishments, his second time period has been marked by spineless compliance at finest — and tacit endorsement at worst.
Trump’s order, which he signed beneath the guise of “combating antisemitism,” directs universities to “monitor for and report actions” by worldwide college students and employees following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel. Whereas the order doesn’t explicitly name for deportation, an accompanying fact sheet issued the next day makes Trump’s goals clear. Falsely dubbing all worldwide college students who participated in Palestine solidarity protests “pro-jihadist,” the president guarantees to “discover,” “deport,” and “rapidly cancel the coed visas of all Hamas sympathizers on school campuses,” including that faculties and universities “have been infested with radicalism like by no means earlier than.” After all, Trump and different supporters of Israel’s genocidal conflict on Gaza have ceaselessly deployed the time period “Hamas sympathizer” to close down any and all critique of the Israeli navy.
Whereas the order doesn’t explicitly name for deportation, an accompanying truth sheet issued the next day makes Trump’s goals clear.
Such a deliberate incursion on the autonomy of college choices ought to spark alarm from institutional leaders. However Trump’s order is just not the primary time that worldwide college students on F-1 visas have been threatened with deportation. And in previous years, that menace was truly issued by the schools themselves.
Take 2017, as an illustration, when SEIU Native 1 started organizing graduate college students at Washington College in St. Louis. Amid the mounting unionization marketing campaign, the college’s provost despatched an e-mail to graduate college students with a listing of ceaselessly requested questions, together with whether or not a strike would impression a global pupil’s F-1 visa standing. Sure, the college mentioned, if the union have been to go on strike, “all international college students will lose their visas and have to go away the nation.” What’s extra, the e-mail made a degree to highlight that “universities are legally required to report back to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] … if a pupil fails to take care of standing,” successfully threatening graduate college students who select to strike with deportation.
The memo failed to say that it’s the college itself that has authority over whether or not putting F-1 visa holders lose their pupil standing — not ICE. If the coed is suspended and loses their standing then, sure, their visa can be in jeopardy. However as a 2017 article in The Nation famous, “for the college to revoke pupil standing due to a strike or different motion referring to unionization can be a transparent violation of federal labor legislation.”
However, related speaking factors have been repeated over time by a spread of universities, notably within the wake of the Nationwide Labor Relations Board’s August 2016 ruling that graduate college students at personal universities are categorized as workers and might subsequently unionize. That yr, Columbia’s provost went as far as to publish an op-ed within the campus newspaper aimed toward dissuading worldwide college students from becoming a member of a marketing campaign to unionize with the United Auto Staff, citing the union’s opposition to an enlargement of the H-1B visa program.
“I’ve had moments questioning if I ought to rock the boat in any means,” Sneha Narayan, a graduate pupil from India, told The Each day Northwestern in 2017 throughout Northwestern’s unionization effort. “We’ve got quite a bit to lose as a result of our visa standing is solely depending on if we’re enrolled within the College.”
Worldwide college students’ vulnerability to deportation has as soon as once more come into sharp reduction amid campus protests for Gaza. Final fall, Cornell deliberate to droop Momodou Taal, a political economic system Ph.D. pupil from the UK, for shutting down a profession honest attended by protection contractors L3Harris and Boeing. An article in The Cornell Each day Solar mentioned {that a} college administrator notified Taal his F-1 visa can be terminated, as he was suspended earlier that yr as effectively for organizing a Palestine solidarity encampment on the quad. Dealing with public backlash to Taal’s imminent deportation, Cornell finally determined to not disenroll him.
Trump’s government order lays naked one thing we already knew: Immigration standing is an efficient cudgel towards the individuals and protesters who problem an establishment’s backside line.
Emboldened by Trump’s government order, networks of oldsters and alumni at Columbia and New York University have additionally leapt on the likelihood to get worldwide college students deported, reporting by The Intercept has revealed. In a Fb group misleadingly titled “Moms In opposition to Faculty Antisemitism,” Elizabeth Rand, an NYU mother or father and legal professional, boasted that the group’s communications with directors have performed a direct function in getting the college to take extra aggressive motion towards college students protesting Israel’s conflict on Gaza. In a WhatsApp group known as Columbia Alumni for Israel, a former assistant professor at Columbia Academics Faculty wrote, “figuring out the Columbia student-Hamas-sympathizers who present up is essential to deporting these with pupil visas.”
Trump’s government order lays naked one thing we already knew: Immigration standing is an efficient cudgel towards the individuals and protesters who problem an establishment’s backside line. Whether or not exercising their First Modification proper to protest or participating in unionization actions protected by federal labor legislation, worldwide college students have lengthy been susceptible to the whims of college leaders who search to make use of their visas as leverage over them.
Maybe, then, I ought to finish by reminding these leaders of their very own phrases. Right here’s that 2017 letter once more:
“American greater schooling has benefited tremendously from this nation’s lengthy historical past of embracing immigrants from world wide. Their improvements and scholarship have enhanced American studying, added to our prosperity, and enriched our tradition. … This government order is dimming the lamp of liberty and marking the nation’s popularity.”
We’re resisting Trump’s authoritarian strain.
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