Colleges win immigration battle, fear for US reputation

Washington, July 19: Even with a fresh victory on behalf of international students, US universities fear they’re losing a broader fight over the nation’s reputation as a place that embraces and fosters the world’s best scholars.

University leaders see it as a steady erosion. They say the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to curb immigration have sent students a message that they aren’t welcome in the United States. Colleges say foreign students are listening: Since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, the number of new international students coming to the US has fallen by 10 per cent after years of growth.

Already, there’s concern that the Coronavirus pandemic and a slowdown of visa processing could prevent thousands of students from returning this fall. Foreign students now face even more uncertainty after seeing how quickly policies can change, and on nothing more than a political whim, said Kim Wilcox, chancellor of the University of California, Riverside. “Higher education in the United States is still seen as the gold standard around the globe, but access to it comes with all kinds of risks,” Wilcox said. “There’s a growing sense that we're just not a welcoming place.”

Trump’s latest policy would have forced international students in the US to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the pandemic. Even those at universities offering a mix of online and in-person classes would have been forbidden from taking all their classes online.

More than 200 colleges signed legal briefs supporting a federal lawsuit by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Seven other suits followed as colleges and states challenged the guidance. Called to court to defend the guidance, federal officials revoked it instead.

It was widely seen as part of Trump’s recent campaign to pressure the nation’s schools and colleges to reopen this fall, even as the coronavirus continues to surge. But even in defeat, the policy fed a narrative that American universities are no longer the welcoming places they once were, said Denis Wirtz, vice provost for research at Johns Hopkins University. It comes as schools in Canada, Australia and other nations push to attract more international scholars. Over time, Wirtz said, those countries may win the world’s top talent.

It’s painful for Wirtz to see. He came to the US from Belgium in 1988 and recalls how warmly he was welcomed. Now, he warns prospective students and researchers that, beyond campus borders, there’s growing hostility toward immigrants. “All those great scholars, wherever they are, India, China, Europe, may now elect to go elsewhere or simply to stay home,” he said.

“We will see its effect four, five years from now. It’s not falling off a cliff, but over time you have this creep down the slope toward mediocrity.”

The concern is shared by leaders at other elite research universities. Only hours after the administration retreated from its policy, MIT’s president published an oped warning that other countries “are working hard to attract students who have soured on the United States because of growing anti-immigrant hostility or bureaucratic roadblocks.” “I fear lately that we will recognise this strategic US strength only once it is lost,” L Rafael Reif wrote.

● COLLEGES SAY foreign students are listening: Since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, the number of new international students coming to the US has fallen by 10 per cent after years of growth.