Weathering the Storm: CMU International Students
How international students at CMU are coping with an adversarial administration, a rocky student visa system, all on top of this year’s COVID crisis.
The past couple of months have been a tumultuous period for international students at Carnegie Mellon and across the US. In March, the spread of COVID-19 shut down travel worldwide, with many countries, including the US, implementing travel bans that greatly restricted international travel. At the same time, thousands of college students were suddenly forced to scramble for alternative housing arrangements as universities shut down campuses and dorms on very short notice.
Then in July, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) issued new rules on student visas that would prohibit students from entering or remaining in the US if their courses were all online. This came at a time when many major US universities, including CMU, were already planning for hybrid instruction, with some schools even going fully online. The announcement of the new rules instantly sparked protests from higher-ed institutions. It was seen as an attempt by the Trump administration to pressure universities into resuming in-person instruction in order to downplay the threat of COVID-19. Harvard and MIT filed a lawsuit against ICE to block the rule. CMU students may remember receiving emails on this topic back in July, in which the university announced that they were filing an amicus brief in support of that lawsuit. The widespread backlash against the visa changes eventually pressured ICE to back down a week or so later.
Now, just a few weeks into fall semester, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has proposed changes to student visa policies yet again, this time placing a fixed 4-year limit on visas and requiring students to apply for extensions if they need more time to complete their education. For students that are citizens of or were born in certain countries with overstay rates of over 10%, the duration would drop to only 2 years.
The DHS claims that the changes will help combat visa fraud, but opponents argue that it places an unnecessary burden on international students and higher-ed institutions when existing policies are already complex. Additionally, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, college students in the US already take, on average, more than 4 years to complete a bachelor's degree. At the graduate level, which often has a higher proportion of international students, PhD programs typically take 6 or more years to complete and furthermore have no set timeline for completion. Ph.D student and VP of external affairs for CMU’s Graduate Student Assembly (GSA) Divyansh Kaushik, who has advocated on this issue as part of and is himself an international student, commented that it would “[put] a lot of uncertainty on students, as well as their funding agencies, their advisors, [on] what will happen after 4 years. The extension isn’t guaranteed.”
“The problem with the statistic is you’re using percentages rather than absolute values, but the data itself is problematic.”
Furthermore, Kaushik notes that the overstay rate itself is a flawed metric. Firstly, the overstay rate is a percentage and not an absolute number, which skews the rate higher for smaller countries that send fewer students. Secondly, “most of it is just the DHS not being able to map a student’s departure from the US to the student, [not] that the students actually stayed in the US and overstayed their visa”, so visa overstay rates actually decrease over time as the DHS fixes their records. In summary, “[t]he problem with the statistic is you’re using percentages rather than absolute values, but the data itself is problematic.” In another recent email to students, CMU’s administration pledged to advocate on behalf of its international students and scholars against the proposed DHS rule as it goes through the agency rulemaking process, which includes a period of public scrutiny. Kaushik is optimistic about the rule being blocked from going through, but also noted, “the administration does not need to succeed, they just want the fear to be there.”
“In 2019, Carnegie Mellon was in the top 5 colleges with the highest number of international student enrollments”
As we think about the unique struggles that international students have faced in these several months, both from the uncertainty created by the pandemic and by the series of attempted changes to the student visa system, it’s worthwhile to take a look at our own international student community. According to the school website, at the undergraduate level, around 22% of the student body is from outside of the U.S. At the graduate level, this number jumps significantly higher to 63%. According to US News, in 2019, Carnegie Mellon was actually in the top 5 colleges with the highest number of international student enrollments. Next, looking at country of origin, a whopping 89% of international students hail from countries in Asia. Within that, 58% are from China, 27% from India, and the rest from South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. Considering that the US travel ban on China is still in effect, the direct impact on CMU’s students is not insignificant.
If there is any silver lining to all this, it might be greater awareness of the struggles that international students face. An anonymous CMU international student that agreed to talk to us for this article expressed, “Before the news this summer regarding student visas came out, I think not too many people knew about how student visas worked with regards to length of stay and work limitations. Though the possibility of sending international students home was very alarming, [it] raised a lot of awareness about student visas, which is something not too commonly discussed.” Many international students express frustration with the visa system’s barriers to finding employment. 99% of CMU’s international students are on an F-1 visa. This means that they are allowed to work on-campus, such as in a Teaching Assistant position, but are not allowed, with some exceptions, to work elsewhere. Employers will not hire students who do not have work authorization, and in online applications for internships and jobs, it’s often one of the first questions you’re asked. This makes it especially challenging for students searching for internships and full-time opportunities. Both undergraduate international students who Big Straw talked to for this article said that their status added to the pressure and difficulty of finding jobs, and one of them said that she’s already accepted an offer back in her home country. “I was originally planning on trying to work in the US post-graduation, but finding full-time jobs open to international students has just been much more difficult this year. I also don't really want to subject myself to the same uncertainty again.” She is, however, still considering returning to the States for her master’s in a few years, “when things calm down a little.”
“The uncertainty around immigration, especially in the past few months, really impacts every part of your life”
For international students, seeing the outspoken rhetoric directed against them has been disheartening and even more stressful amongst the backdrop of the COVID crisis. One of our undergraduate sources said, “the uncertainty around immigration, especially in the past few months, really impacts every part of your life. Over the summer I wasn't sure where I was going to be for the rest of the year, so I basically lived out of a suitcase for a month because I had to be ready to potentially fly home with 24 hours' notice.” Kaushik commented that anti-immigrant rhetoric is not new, and he sees the student visa proposals as the latest in a long history of bipartisan exclusivity, with both parties ignoring or adding to the issue. In particular, he pointed out the limited opposition from Pennsylvania’s congressional democrats to repeated attacks on immigration policy by the administration, and the lack of any proactive measures in Congress, on either side of the aisle, in response to the proposal. When asked what his views on how the CMU administration has done so far in supporting international students, Kaushik said that he appreciated the university’s behind-the-scenes work but hopes to see the administration take a more public stand in defense of them.
All in all, it’s been a rough year for international students in the US. The uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online schooling has been difficult enough for the average CMU student. International students meanwhile, face the added burden of the Trump administration’s continued efforts to add more restrictions to student visas, and a world that looks more uncertain than it did just a few years ago.