In the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, with its focus on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, new energy sources and improvements in genetic technology, America must not forfeit one of its historically vital keys to success: foreign students. Earlier this year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced harsher punishments for foreign students who overstay their visas, specifically that such students holding non-immigrant visas will accrue unlawful presence and a ten-year re-entry period. While other nations, especially China, are expanding efforts to attract overseas talent, the Trump administration has slammed America’s doors shut, especially to tech-savvy graduate students.
Nearly 80 percent of foreign exchange students from China have returned to their mother country following increasingly severe limitations set by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on their student visas. The government set a one year time limit for Chinese graduate students in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. As one aspect of the measures targeting Beijing for alleged intellectual property violation, this measure severely affects one of America’s own trade surpluses: higher education. Chinese exchange students make up one third of the international student body in American colleges.
These international students often make up a significant percentage of high levels academics, and they often wish to stay. In 2017 alone, Chinese students contributed $11 billion and Indian students contributed $5 million to the U.S. economy. Trump’s claim that graduate students are only in the U.S. to steal high technology secrets is absurd and far-fetched. Alarmingly, the decline in international enrollment has been going on for several years now, and Trump’s policies only exacerbate the problem. According to Politico, enrollment of new foreign students in the U.S. dropped by 3 percent during the 2016-17 school year. The unnecessarily harsh policies increasingly make this rich source of intellect and innovation direct competition elsewhere.
America is a giant immigrant nation that has always depended on the influx of talent, skill and intellect from all over the world. If this problem continues, the U.S. will only suffer in the long-term, and Warriors will be deprived of the chance to engage with a more international community in colleges and careers. Don’t make students the sacrifice of politics.