Student visa: America’s national security dilemma

Student visa: America’s national security dilemma | Daily Tribune

Student visa revocations. Visa interview cancellations. Ramped up social media inspections. Protest action restrictions. On campus apprehensions and detentions. Summary deportations.

Yes, everything about student visa evisceration has become as common in America as a priest’s sermon.

Nowadays, foreign students in the US are coming to grips with the reality that the student visa is no longer viewed, at least in certain government circles, as some kind of innocuous immigration contrivance that can be used indiscriminately to pursue academic excellence or skills enhancement in the US.

Not anymore.

Just recently, the US State Department issued an urgent directive freezing all student visa interviews and approvals at American consulates abroad.

While intensified social media vetting is ostensibly the reason for the moratorium, there is more to the measure than meets the eye given the US government’s recent crackdown on foreign students engaged in protest actions against Israel’s counter-offensives in the Middle East.

Add to the equation the subsequent announcement regarding the planned revocation of Chinese students’ visas for national security reasons and the overall picture becomes less murky.

To immigration advocates, the logic surrounding the abrupt termination of the foreign students’ legal status vis-à-vis America’s reputation as a welcoming nation and a bastion of advanced knowledge and learning is difficult to get a handle on.

But to concerned citizens who are averse to national security risks, the reasoning behind the moves is as clear as day.

In other countries, foreigners with temporary status, including those on student visas, are not allowed to engage in political activities.

In fact, while freedom of speech and assembly is a universally recognized right, most countries draw the line as to what non-citizens can do or not do, foremost among which is the proscription against violating the host country’s internal laws and policies or committing acts inimical to the country’s national security interests.

Against this backdrop is China’s penchant for spying and stealing military and industrial secrets from other countries, especially from its perceived nemeses, reason enough to justify a wholesale ban of Chinese students as potential spies.

Moreover, could China’s aggressive stance against America’s allies in the Pacific, combined with its ongoing tariff war with the US, provide a valid cover for giving it a political finger by restricting US educational access to Chinese youths?

In a much broader context, should foreign students who take part in campus demonstrations to show solidarity with the Palestinians and Hamas militants who had mercilessly kidnapped and massacred innocent Jewish civilians be entitled to kid gloves treatment despite their “guest” status in a country that has historically been a loyal Israel ally?

Irrespective of one’s perspective on the matter, one thing is worth noting: the controversy has its roots in a momentous event that occurred almost 25 years ago.

Shortly after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks – in which the majority of the Islamic perpetrators entered the US on student visas – the US government drastically transformed the student visa vetting process from extremely lax to “passing-through-the-eye-of-a-needle” difficult.

However, whether or not the current state of the country’s national security affairs rises to the level of 09/11’s magnitude to justify imposition of the draconian student visa measures in question is well beyond a lowly immigration attorney’s pay grade.