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U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

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Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#41

Post by ceejayoz »

munificent wrote: post #36
ardit33 wrote: post #7

Is this administration very incompetent, or very sadistic? If they rescinded the order, means they: 1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order. 2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the foreign kids, while posturing to their base 3) Force universities to stay open in the middle of the pandemic in order to help Trump's reelection bid... (not sure how breakouts of covid i…

It's both, actually. Hamfisted malice.

Perhaps most disturbingly, it demonstrates how effective non-hamfisted malice might be.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#42

Post by hirundo »

ardit33 wrote: post #7

Is this administration very incompetent, or very sadistic? If they rescinded the order, means they: 1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order. 2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the foreign kids, while posturing to their base 3) Force universities to stay open in the middle of the pandemic in order to help Trump's reelection bid... (not sure how breakouts of covid i…

The Trump campaign vaulted to the top during the 2016 primary with his hard line immigration proposals. The border wall promise was his political breakthrough. Immigration is the key issue for many of his voters. He has been consistently strict on immigration accordingly. The decision maker was probably just following that policy line, and then got overruled by the details. In particular I assume Trump's lawyers predicted a bruising, losing court fight.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#43

Post by japhyr »

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #34

Whether or not they know it, this administration is constantly floating out test balloons for outright evil nonsense... and I think some of it slips through simply because everyone's exhausted by it. It's going to take at least a decade to fix what they've broken at this point, and if they end up appointing just 1 more Supreme Court justice it's going to take the rest of our lives. I still see people (people I know e…

> Whether or not they know it

They know exactly what they're doing. Trump plays the ignorant fool so cruel and heartless policies can be put in place efficiently, and supportive policies can be undone efficiently.

I don't think Trump is a bright individual, but he is definitely accomplishing what he set out to accomplish. Most people just aren't used to a president actively undermining their own country.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#44

Post by alexfromapex »

supernova87a wrote: post #18

Another example of the haphazard throw-it-against-the-wall approach of what our country has chosen to have as our national experiment. This cannot be good for either side. Do we want to live in a system where if you hadn't been paying attention to the news for 1 week, we might have kicked >100,000 people out of the country? Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for any…

Banning lobbying which is going to be a difficult battle for sure

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#45

Post by mschuster91 »

supernova87a wrote: post #18

Another example of the haphazard throw-it-against-the-wall approach of what our country has chosen to have as our national experiment. This cannot be good for either side. Do we want to live in a system where if you hadn't been paying attention to the news for 1 week, we might have kicked >100,000 people out of the country? Is this ADD-style, whoever yells the loudest, social and political system working well for any…

> How do we get past this?

Reform the entire election system:

- 4 year term length for House elections instead of 2 so that representatives can get stuff done instead of having to spend every second year in election campaigns

- reform campaign financing to a government funded model like in Germany (and entirely ban PACs) so that the influence of big money on government is eliminated

- if possible, get rid of the Presidential election by the population and have the President elected by Congress to prevent the situation of having a President without his own legislative majority

- get rid of FPTP and introduce proportional voting to reduce polarization and create more diversity in politics

- get rid of voter suppression and gerrymandering, make Sunday a voting day (or alternatively, a federal holiday), enforce universal mail-in voting across states

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#46

Post by ebg13 »

ergocoder wrote: post #8
ebg13 wrote: post #5

> They cited time zone differences, unreliable or state-managed Internet and armed conflict in some of the students’ homelands. I think it would be enlightening to see transcripts of the moments where each side said something convincing to the other. Like...did Harvard representatives walk in and say "You know that this shit matters, right?" and then did the US representatives say "Oh shit. You're right. We never eve…

It probably something like " these foreign students bring billions of dollars to US". We'd really like to keep these customers.

But how is that striking "a deal"? That doesn't sound like giving something to get something.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#47

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

nine_zeros wrote: post #14
atonse wrote: post #6

Excellent. The system worked this time. People challenged executive branch action through the judicial system and the executive branch backed down. But this should never have been an issue to begin with, think of all the unnecessary stress and anxiety this has caused for the hundreds of thousands of international students impacted by this.

> But this should never have been an issue to begin with, think of all the unnecessary stress and anxiety this has caused for the hundreds of thousands of international students impacted by this. More importantly, the long term damage is done. The noise was heard loud and clear that America is only as competent as its leader. Prospective future students are likely going to be ultra careful before choosing this countr…

This was the event that broke the camel's back? No, we've been laughed at and ridiculed for the past three years. Add this to the pile.

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#48

Post by chvid »

ben7799 wrote: post #25

This program was a wild success beyond Trump's wildest dreams. No one is talking about Russian Bounties on US troops. Crisis averted. He just keeps on winning!

Are you serious?

To me this adds to the picture of an administration who is about to loose the forthcoming election and is acting more and more eratic.

But I am not American so I cannot tell whether this is actually convincing to the broader electorate?

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#49

Post by grugagag »

sitkack wrote: post #33
farnsworth wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 is the answer. They probably hardly cared whether the rule was successfully implemented. They succeeded in spreading FUD and in the future, prospective international students will think twice before deciding to study in the US. The damage is done.

Lots of top tier universities are already opening foreign campuses. Future students will just end up there. This move accelerated the rise of foreign top tier mind work at the expense of that work in the USA. Couple this with the antagonistic stance by the administration to foreign highly capable workers and you have a recipe for a tech softening in the USA. This is good for the world. Part of me sees this as a cynic…

Can you expand on this please? What countries are these campuses in?

Re: U.S. backs down in fight with Harvard, MIT over student visas

#50

Post by TechBro8615 »

ardit33 wrote: post #7

Is this administration very incompetent, or very sadistic? If they rescinded the order, means they: 1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order. 2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the foreign kids, while posturing to their base 3) Force universities to stay open in the middle of the pandemic in order to help Trump's reelection bid... (not sure how breakouts of covid i…

It's a combination of #2 and #3. The Trump administration has a strategy that should be very clear by now: implement or propose outlandish policy, then use it as leverage for gains in some orthogonal area while walking it back. This is deal-making 101, Trump (or his ghost-writer) writes about it in all his books, and it's an obvious trend. He uses this tact in domestic policy and trade deals, and tbh it's pretty effective.
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