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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

#131
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 If they rescinded the order, means they: 1) Didn't think through the consequences, or the legality of the order. 2) They just wanted to crate some chaos, and mess up with the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 just red meat for the base. The administration doesn't actually want to restrict immigration, they just know that they were hired to restrict immigration, so they have to appear to be working on that. Notice that every single time they've done any kind of immigration restriction, they either walk it back within 72 hours, or allow themselves to be stopped in court. It's all just a sham for the voters in an election year.

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

#132

A well known religious University near me just started offering "in person" (wink wink) classes where attendance would not be taken. I was proud to see it.

Loopholes work until a judge uses their ability to exercise judgment and judges that they don't work.

Some people refuse to accept that laws are administered by humans.

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

#133

Such an embarrassing blunder, of many blunders, for this administration.

This was election year red meat for Trump's base, which his campaign has explicitly made their sole focus. It lets them tell the true believers that Trump tried to keep the evil foreigners out but the liberal deep state traitors stopped him, that's why they need to keep supporting Trump. That's what's behind all of these absurd attacks on immigrants, queer people, etc that instantly get struck down.

Yeah, in some ways this was the perfect outcome for that kind of posturing.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that an actual drop in international student numbers would likely have hurt colleges in Republican-controlled states worse than Democrat-controlled ones. American students armed with student loans would still flock to top universities to make up for the international student shortfall, and I can't think of a top 10 [1] university off the top of my head that's in a state with a Republican governor.

[1] https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...

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

#134
This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially.

It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capitalized on a situation and should be congratulated for that, regardless of whether or not you agree with the politics.

I would hope that the DNC would learn this tactic and employ it equally as well in the future.

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

#135
post #121
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They sure do. We have a White House filled with white supremacists and career grifters. All of these people think they're doing good things; they just have a different idea than I do of who deserves "good things".

> We have a White House filled with white supremacists and career grifters I know right? Lots of white supremacists everywhere in the White House with the grand wizard as POTUS spewing 'this hate' all over the place /s. Meanwhile in the 'peaceful' CHAZ/CHOP, they also reported that their experiment turned out to be a pretty good thing for eveyone as 'a summer of love'. /s It's too easy to label and categorize anythin…

I guess I could just link to the tweet where the president supported the display of the confederate flag. You don't have to dig deep on this one.

There are exaggerations on both sides for sure, but despite those you can clearly point to a "worse side" here.

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

#136

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially. It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capital…

I really hope we don't all devolve into acting like this.

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

#137

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially. It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capital…

[deleted]

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

#138

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially. It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capital…

A huge opputunity cost of this kind of behavior is further distraction from forming policy that actually improves the lives of the community.

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

#139

A well known religious University near me just started offering "in person" (wink wink) classes where attendance would not be taken. I was proud to see it.

Actually, most universities don't take attendance. It's a waste of time, it punishes pro-social behavior (there is no good reason for people feeling sick to go to class), and it's infantilizing. "Attendance required" often means "we will notice if you never attend, and then will feel less bad failing you if you don't do your homework either".

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

#140

This is genius. If you assume that the Trump Administration did this to show their base that they're serious about deporting foreigners to garner election votes, then you can conclude that they've managed to do that with as much publicity as possible at virtually no cost financially. It's likely they knew this would never go through and didn't want a knockdown drag-out fight in the courts. However, they still capital…

I'm sorry, what? You think it's a good thing for our politicians to waste everyone's time by pushing policies they know will never pass / will be struck down in court, just to win political points? IMO this sort of thing is exactly what's wrong with the political climate right now. This sort of behavior makes it all about "us vs them" and shuts down any sort of nuanced discussion about what's best for the country.
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