ICE’s Student Visa Policy is Terrible for the US Economy

5 min readDec 6, 2020

Without well-educated foreign nationals, America’s universities and white-collar industries will suffer.

NEWS UPDATE (7/14/20): On July 14th, the Trump administration rescinded this policy as part of the resolution in a lawsuit Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pursued against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This story was posted on July 10th, when the directive was still in effect.

I am a graduate student at a mid-size international affairs professional school. I learn from the opinions of my international student colleagues every day. Although I spent a semester studying overseas, I am an American who chose to attend two American schools as part of my higher education. I often find that my Americanness affects my perspective on international issues without me even realizing it, even when I am trying to be objective. This is when I ask international students for their take. Their presence helps me become more observant, inclusive, and thoughtful — characteristics that will help me immensely in intercultural workplaces. And they also relay personal knowledge about their home countries, which helps me learn more about different regions of the world. I know I’m not alone in believing that international students enrich students and faculty’s academic pursuits at American universities.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) recent decision on student visas states that students holding F-1 or M-1 visas enrolled in fall courses that will be delivered fully online must return to their countries or risk deportation. ICE recommends that if students cannot enroll in in-person classes but want to stay in the country, they should transfer to schools that will have in-person or hybrid instruction. When I first heard this news, I was very surprised. America’s university system is the best in the world and is universally admired. The Soft Power 30, an index measuring countries’ social and cultural impact on the world, has ranked the US #1 in education every year since the list was created. And universities rely on international students to bring in much of their income since a larger percentage of foreign nationals pay tuition in full than American students. I asked myself, why would ICE make this decision that was counterintuitive to achieving economic stability during a recession? Some believe that ICE’s ruling will help the US in its Coronavirus response efforts, but the policy seemed — and still seems — to be motivated by xenophobia. As I started thinking more about the economic impact of the policy, I decided I wanted to investigate it more for myself. Below, are some figures on the economic contributions of international students to the American economy while enrolled in school and after graduation.

In-School Contributions

According to the Association for International Educators, international students injected $41 billion into the American economy last year. Education is the US’s sixth-largest service export. International student enrollment supported or created 458,290 jobs. Most of these jobs were in the retail, higher education, accommodation, dining, transportation, health insurance, and telecommunications sectors.
International students comprise 5.5% of the total number of students in American higher education, as indicated in the US Department of State and the Institute of International Education’s 2019 Open Doors Report. 57% of foreign students rely on family funding to pay tuition. 20.6% and 4.3% rely upon income from employment or foreign government grants, respectively.

Post-Grad Contributions

According to NAFSA, one-quarter of the founders of American-based startup companies valued at more than $1 billion initially immigrated to the US for their education. 62 current world leaders attended an American institution of higher education.
A 2014 Brookings Institution report indicates that 2/3rds of international students study business or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) fields, industries critical to the American economy. After graduation, this study notes that 45% of students extend their visas to work in the locality where they attended school. These immigrants serve as bridges between their home and American communities — studies show that these personal connections can help facilitate mutual foreign direct investment (i.e. investment from the US to the other country and from the other country to the US).

Conclusion

Before this announcement, American universities were already projected to lose $3 billion in revenue this fall because of lower enrollments due to COVID-19. Now, higher education is scrambling to formally appeal this policy and make hasty decisions on course-delivery methods. Reflecting on the above statistics, ICE’s policy makes even less sense. Foreign students at US institutions create American jobs, promote American higher education abroad, and frequently stay in the US after graduation to work.

If anything, this ICE ruling is one more example of the Trump Administration’s push to implement ethnocentric policies. With each year of the Trump presidency, immigration policies and the rhetoric surrounding them grow more extreme and exclusive. Now, we are barring one of the groups of immigrants that contributes most to the US from being here.

For Americans who are tired of this xenophobia, it is time to take a stand. Call or email your Representative and Senators — ask them to withdraw ICE’s restrictions on international students.

ICE’s Student Visa Policy is Terrible for the US Economy

In-School Contributions

Post-Grad Contributions

Conclusion

Written by Poeviolet