LETTER: ICE PROPOSAL TO EXPEL INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS WILL HURT THE US

The new ICE regulations requiring international students to leave the US if their fall 2020 instruction will be only conducted online are punitive and serve no reasonable American national interest. As such, the primary arguments for emerging widespread opposition to these new measures have been both the ethics and unfairness they embody, and the economic costs to universities and their communities of forcing students to leave their homes.

There are many reasons to oppose strongly these new measures. For me, a key point is the essential contributions that international graduates of American university to addressing today’s most pressing global problems. Foreign students bring to their residence in the US diverse perspectives and social grounding that benefit their American student peers and broader university communities inordinately. Once their education is complete, these students can combine their understanding of the societies from which they came and their US-based expertise to great effect.

The UMass School of Public Policy recently showcased a former student of mine in India who just co-authored a book on distance learning in Indian secondary schools, a topic of critical importance at this moment. Current students from other countries I know have been very important to emerging intellectual and policy debates about key Middle Eastern current focal points of US policy, such as Iran and Syria. The most pressing problems in today’s work, including climate change, millions of refugees and other displaced people, and, more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, defy national borders and require transnational solutions. Addressing these problems requires well-educated specialists working in diverse societies who understand both international research tools and the dynamics of one or more societies. 

As both a former Fulbright student and faculty scholar to several Middle Eastern countries, I understand this deeply from personal experience. Because of what I have learned at foreign universities, I have been able to secure major research funding to establish multinational research teams on important issues of law and policy. My ability to teach on the Middle East and comparative policy has also been directly enhanced from the time I have spent at foreign universities.

The proposed new ICE policies warrant strong opposition because they are wrong and terribly burdensome for foreign students. I appreciate basic ethical arguments of this nature, as have been made by the Chancellor of my university, for example. Nonetheless, if making more instrumental arguments about the usefulness of foreign students helps amplify broad action against the ICE rules, then noting the importance of foreign students’ intelligence, creativity, knowledge, and diversity of experience seems worthwhile. 

The US and the world need fully-trained foreign students to make a useful and major difference in our biggest problems. Sending them out of the US before their education is complete is short-sighted, as well as cruel.

David Mednicoff

David Mednicoff is Professor in The School of Public Policy and Chair of The  Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at UMass Amherst.