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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

#261

Post by yangminded »

totalZero wrote: post #259
stu2b50 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blunder was retracting the special exception made during Spring 2020 that allowed F and M visa students to take online classes. The pandemic is far from over, especially in the US, a fact which is obvious to everyone. The retraction is pure stupidity. Of course it would be unreasonable to ask int students to attend in person classes given the situation.

I have been on the fence about this policy, for the following reason. On the one hand, it seems overtly xenophobic and anti-intellectual. On the other hand, I don't see why an international student needs to be in the United States in order to participate exclusively in online classes. Even if the issue is a lack of human welfare (eg unsafe neighborhood) or necessary infrastructure (eg slow/inconsistent internet) back…

Time zones a big factor. Note that this is about online classes (live), not a MOOC.

I wouldn't want to expect a student in Sydney to stay awake at 3AM to follow a lecture at Harvard at 1PM.

The same is true for office hours with professors and TAs. You have a huge disadvantage in getting information if you are in a bad time zone.

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

#262

Post by qtplatypus »

WalterBright wrote: post #188
throwawaygh wrote: post #182

I'm not relieved. Or, only partially relieved. One of the core arguments was that the Feds can't pull funds for their stated purpose, which was to encourage/force schools to open ("The government has provided no reason for its abrupt and unexplained shift. That is unsurprising, since... its purpose—as expressed by Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli—is to 'encourage schools to reopen.' In esse…

The federal government did use the threat of withdrawal of highway funds to get all 50 states to lower the speed limit to 55.

Not quite. What it did was offer highway funds in exchange for the 55 speed limit. The difference is threatening to withdraw pre exisiting funds in exchange for the state doing something is illegal but introducing new funds is legal.

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

#263

Post by Beldin »

karmelapple wrote: post #246
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not a bug? A straightforward patch would be the introduction of FPTP and moving the executive role from the office of the head-of-state to a body controlled by congress.

Ranked Choice Voting, which is now the law for all elections in the state of Maine except the Presidency, is a way to help ensure that the winning candidate has been chosen by at least 50% of voters, even if the winning candidate wasn’t the first choice for all voters. Adopting RCV seems to me like one of the best ways we can improve the health of the US’s democracy going forward. Any voters Massachusetts can vote th…

My current view is that having districts undermines everything. Once politicians are elected due to a specific geographical region,

1. they are beholden to that region,

2. You get an all-or-nothing approach to elections.

With respect to 1: the main problem is that such a system will put the interests of the country second to the interests of the district.

But even if you think that is an acceptable trade off, there's 2: all-or-nothing. RCV is one way to partially mitigate this, by letting voters specify more choices.

Of course, ideally you'd want proportional representation. A simple solution is to abolish districts and have one multi-seat election. All votes count, the N candidates with the most votes are elected.

(Of course, if you prefer to maintain districts, you can achieve the same by increasing the number of electable seats per district.)

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

#264

Post by newen »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #260
generationP wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Average university that admits lots of foreign students take attendance including biometric attendance. This is especially true for universities where students are in constant crosshair of ICE/USCIS etc. This is done not because University cares about you attending but they have to comply with the law. If you admit a student from Pakistan in your Santa Clara campus but ICE finds the student working in New Jersey, the…

The attendance taking and biometric attendance sounds completely made up. I’ve lots of international students as friends and no one has made any passing mention of this and I’ve never seen this ever.

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

#265

Post by KorematsuFred »

LordFast wrote: post #103

Elementary school politics. This would be a hilarious sitcom if it weren't for all the thousands of people getting hurt by this dysfunctional joke of a government.

I am an immigration activist (Indian-national immigration) and closely working with students/h1bs as well as following work of anti-immigrant people.

It is very clear to me that current admin is acting out of malevolence. This is not about protecting American interests or even upholding law. This is about a careful strategy called "attrition through enforcement". Make life difficult of immigrants so they leave voluntarily over time without need for any drastic law, also since the impact of this strategy is felt over time (just like climate change) no big players feel the need to act against it. (E.g. Google might not even realize what is happening by the time it is very late).

There is a reason why most immigration law, processes and regulation exists and not all of them are implemented by "open border" folks in Obama or Bush administration. But the current admin people are operating under that weird assumption. So they look at every immigration benefit as "exploit" and try to close it without understanding its broader impact. Their approach is "lets try and see". They either lose in court or some lobby manages to convince Trump. This is not the first battle this admin has lost in court and it wont be last.

Even though I am pro-immigration, I understand that American people have the 100% right to regulate who comes in, but regulation implies application of law, which must follow due process, should be predictable and in general should honor contract. Otherwise there is simply no incentive to follow law for anyone.

Current admin's "attrition via enforcement" has worked pretty well for students from India.

As of 2020:

Total Indian students in Canada : 172,000 (up from 76,000 in 2016) Indian students enrollment in USA : 64,000 (down from 86,000) [Note this is new students enrolling. Total students is probably 2.5x and 4x if you count students working on OPT]

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

#266

Post by ScottBurson »

karmelapple wrote: post #246
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this not a bug? A straightforward patch would be the introduction of FPTP and moving the executive role from the office of the head-of-state to a body controlled by congress.

Ranked Choice Voting, which is now the law for all elections in the state of Maine except the Presidency, is a way to help ensure that the winning candidate has been chosen by at least 50% of voters, even if the winning candidate wasn’t the first choice for all voters. Adopting RCV seems to me like one of the best ways we can improve the health of the US’s democracy going forward. Any voters Massachusetts can vote th…

RCV is an improvement on FPTP -- almost anything would be! -- but Approval Voting is even better. It is easier to implement (the ballot doesn't change at all, just the way it's counted), simpler for voters to understand (you just vote for every candidate you approve of), much less susceptible to strategic voting and not at all to strategic candidate selection, and therefore much less likely to return an anomalous result.

http://www.electionscience.org

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

#267

Post by KorematsuFred »

throwawaygh wrote: post #182

I'm not relieved. Or, only partially relieved. One of the core arguments was that the Feds can't pull funds for their stated purpose, which was to encourage/force schools to open ("The government has provided no reason for its abrupt and unexplained shift. That is unsurprising, since... its purpose—as expressed by Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli—is to 'encourage schools to reopen.' In esse…

We will find out as the Panda vs Wolf case proceeds. This case was filed today and challenges President's recent proclamation banning entry for some H visa holders.

Their case makes arguments very similar to yours.

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

#268

Post by qwerty456127 »

totalZero wrote: post #258
qwerty456127 wrote: post #257

Am I the only one thinking fighting to rid the country of the students resourceful enough to study in Harvard and MIT is madness? I would rather give them citizenship without even waiting for them to graduate.

For the sake of circumspection, I suppose a counterpoint to your thinking might go like this...... These institutions receive an abundance of high-quality applications every year and choose only a few; for every admitted international student, several amazing domestic applicants are rejected. The government does not need to bend over backwards for the international students who won the admissions lottery, because the…

Just fix the system the way more students can be admitted and graduate. As many as possible (while maintaining the quality).

This can be especially easy now as the universities target to become 100% online and the number of students whom you can let attend a lecture is virtually unlimited.

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

#269

Post by Beldin »

p1necone wrote: post #248
dragonwriter wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> FPTP tends to lead to the same heavily divided two major party politics you already have, it just avoids the possibility of winning with No, it doesn't. FPTP is a synonym for single-member plurality, which enables wins with less than 50% of the popular vote when there are more than two candidates. You may mean majority-runoff (which the US already uses for a fair number of elections) or instant runoff, instead of F…

Oops yes I am mistaken about the non majority thing. It still leads to bi party politics though.

Only if the election is per-seat.

In the Netherlands, elections for the lower house (150 seats) are nationwide. The 150 candidates/parties with the highest number of votes get a seat.

The party system makes it a bit more complex, but in the end, there's roughly proportional representation: a party with 10% of the popular vote occupies roughly 10% of the seats.

No superwinning like in the UK (where 30% of the vote can get you more than 30% of the seats), no cut-off except you need at least 1/150th of the votes to get a seat.

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