It’s like “tying one hand behind our back”
Advocates for international and undocumented students sought to make the case for immigration reform that would allow them to stay in the United States at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday — and they may have found a receptive audience among lawmakers from both parties.
“In terms of America’s competitiveness, this is crazy. It’s tying one hand behind our back,” Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, said of policies that make it difficult for international students to work in America after graduation.
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, called a higher-ed-backed proposal to make more green cards available to graduates with advanced science and technology degrees “pretty reasonable.”
And Sen. Richard J. Durbin, the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat and a longtime sponsor of legislation to give legal status to undocumented young people, said immigration reform should be Congress’s next priority.
Yet despite the largely warm welcome by the Senate Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on immigration, there were also reminders of why it can be difficult to enact legislative fixes to the current immigration system. Several senators questioned whether high-skilled immigrants — the subject of the hearing — should be favored over less-educated workers who want to come to the United States. One of the witnesses was Dalia Larios, a medical resident who said she was the first recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program to be accepted to Harvard Medical School. Cornyn asked her which policy area, for international or undocumented students, was more critical to to tackle. “I don’t consider any immigrant more deserving,” Larios said diplomatically.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, sought to connect international-student policy to an issue she has warned repeatedly about, the potential risk of theft of intellectual property by foreign governments, and asked if international academic exchange might make American colleges more vulnerable. (The subcommittee’s chairman, Sen. Alex Padilla of California, responded that the “vast majority” of international students pose no threat, citing a recent letter by a bipartisan group of former national security officials who said the U.S. government needs to do more to hold onto talented international graduates of its colleges.)
Another witness, Bernard A. Burrola, vice president for international, community, and economic engagement at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, tried to impress a need for urgency upon the senators. He noted that even before the pandemic, the United States had been losing international enrollments as other countries — including Australia, Britain, and Canada — posted gains. America’s competitors have streamlined visa processes, promote their countries as study destinations, and have clear pathways for graduates to gain work permits, he said. “Our losses are others’ gains.”
The United States can ill afford to lose international talent, especially with recent declines in domestic enrollments, Burrola said.
He said Congress should approve the green-card exemption for STEM grad students, which is included in broader competitiveness legislation currently being negotiated by members of the House and Senate. “An advanced degree in STEM should be a ticket to a green card,” he said, “giving certainty to students and employers and fostering a greater environment for innovation.”
Burrola also called on lawmakers to ease the visa process and to permit “dual intent,” that is, allowing student-visa applicants to express interest in both studying and working in the United States. Because a student visa is a nonimmigrant visa, expressing interest in staying in the United States after graduation to work is currently grounds for consular officials to deny an application.
Larios, an Arizona State University graduate who came to the United States at age 10, put a face on the issues facing undocumented students. The DACA program, now a decade old, gave her and other young people brought to the United States as children protection from deportation and the ability to study here, but unless Congress enacts a long-term fix, her future remains uncertain, she told the senators.
The Trump administration tried to limit the program, and repeated court challenges have contested its legality.
“For me, the thought of deportation is exceptionally painful to bear,” said Larios, whose siblings are American citizens and whose parents have been able to gain legal status in the United States. “Most days, I don’t allow myself to think about it; it would mean losing everything and everyone I know.”
