Foreign Students Are a Major American Resource

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that Mahmoud Khalil, an activist who is being detained by federal immigration authorities, is "going to leave — and so are others."

Mahmoud Khalil is in the U.S. on an F-1 student visa as a graduate student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Foreign students are a major resource. Paul Krugman:

Many foreigners come to America to study, attracted by the quality of our colleges and universities. In 2023, the most recent year for which data are available, they spent more than $50 billion. But if you were a foreigner considering study in the U.S. next year, wouldn’t you be worried that you might find yourself arrested and deported for expressing what the current administration considers anti-American views? I would. So, we can expect a hit to higher education, which, although we rarely think of it this way, is a major U.S. export.

A conservative legal blogger argued that their foreign visas can be revoked for exercising constitutional rights. He framed it this way:

Foreign students are here as visitors to study, not to be members of the American polity. 

I don't know the reach of the "American polity" label. They are not voting. They still can take part in debates and protests. Noncitizens are allowed to do that, including those here as students. 

Also, noncitizens advance the overall conversation in a way that helps American citizens. Immigrants add special value to the educational experience, including different perspectives and knowledge. 

That doesn't mean that we should prohibit them from expressing their opinions, 

Okay, so they can "express opinions." 

I would hope so. He pushed back against me in a comment but if we welcome them as members of college and universities, that is part of the program. People who go to college take part in debates and protests. It is part of the experience. 

Maybe, the visa requires them to be full time students. They still can take part in protests. If the United States wants to only allow them to take part in a correspondence course, so be it, but they did not do that. They welcomed them as full students. 

but, e.g., holding protests in favor of an enemy country during wartime, or, more controversially perhaps, prohibiting foreign students from using their status as such to try to influence American public opinion on behalf of organizations that Congress has sanctioned as enemy terrorist organizations, strikes me as perfectly reasonable.

I don't think it is perfectly reasonable to deport students for trying to influence American public opinion. Free discourse should be honored in educational institutions. Academic freedom is good. 

A visa holder can be deported if they cross the line regarding actual material support, not just influencing debate, of registered enemy terrorist organizations. This should be done carefully, which is something the Trump Administration has trouble doing.

===

Dr. Rasha Alawieh was approved for an H-1B visa last year to work in the Division of Nephrology at Brown University’s medical school – after studying at three US universities since 2018. She left the country to go to the funeral of Hassan Nasrallah. 

The funeral "was held in a sports stadium and attracted tens of thousands of people." That might be a fraction of the true number.

She returned to the United States but was blocked at the airport. Alawieh said she supported Nasrallah religiously, not politically. She was deported.

(There was controversy over the Administration not following a court order to not deport her before a hearing was held. Ultimately, the judge decided that the government did not receive the order in time.) 

The minimum concern here is that she was deported (some carp on that word but I have seen it being used by lots of news sources, including Fox News) without proper due process. There should be a way to have a hearing before she is forced to leave the country. 

Again, merely having views supporting a person who took part in terrorism should not be enough to deport someone here on a visa for an extended time, doing productive scientific work. Pictures of the guy on her phone and showing up at a funeral that tens of thousands also took part in is a dubious line. 

Still, maybe the facts will come out that justify deporting her. Again, my test would be concrete evidence of material support, not simply having "views" about the guy. I have my doubts. It still should be done in a more procedurally benign fashion. 

It is not quite akin to sending someone to Louisiana away from their pregnant wife, incommunicado for an extended period. Still, she was here for a long time with connections to this country. Not allowing her to return is still a seriously troubling matter. 

Foreign students and scholars are a major American resource. We should treat them carefully.  

And, there is also a wider war on academic study.