News Journal: Immigration crackdown will have unintended consequences

Unintended Consequences

During the years I worked in the United States Senate, I saw a lot of them.
I want to share my concern about how new or threatened changes in immigration policies are beginning to affect the flow of foreign exchange students to our country. But first let me give you an example of how well-intended legislation can have negative consequences years later.
For many years after Pakistan became an independent country, a significant segment of its elite military officer corps got advanced training in the United States. That changed after the United States showed its displeasure when Pakistan became a nuclear power by banning most military aid in 1985 and ending all joint military training in 1990.
Cut to 2009. As a senator, I made trips to Pakistan and Afghanistan and got involved in a question that was frustrating our military commanders. Despite the fact that senior Pakistani officers were predominately pro-American, we simply couldn’t get much cooperation from their intelligence service.
We finally figured it out. Many of the older Pakistani generals had trained in the United States, developed a sense of friendship with it, and had close long-term relationships with American officers they had met in school. The younger officers leading their intelligence services had trained elsewhere after 1990, often in countries hostile to us. It was an intractable problem then and has only become worse as those younger officers have replaced their elders.
I think of that example when I see how changes in immigration policies and attitudes are beginning to affect one of the great, if little recognized successes of post-World War II America. We have become by far the destination of choice for the best and brightest students who want to study in a different country.
There are over a million exchange students in the United States, more than double the number in the U.K., the next largest host country. Many of them will stay after graduation and use their skills to make enormous contributions to our economy.
Just one example: Ten research Nobel Prizes have been awarded to recipients living in the United States in the last two years. All but one of them were born outside the U.S, and six studied in U.S. universities.
Other foreign students will return and become leaders in their countries, one hopes with a better understanding of Americans and our values. While they live in our country, all of them expose the American students whose campuses they share to different ideas and cultures, giving them a window into a wider world being transformed by globalization.
The economic impact of those million students is considerable. NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, found that, during 2016- 2017 academic year, international students contributed $36.9 billion to the U S economy and supported 450,000 jobs. Hundreds of American colleges and universities have come to rely on exchange students for a significant part of their income.
For all of these reasons, the recent news that the number of new foreign students in the United States declined by about 7 percent last fall is troubling. According to the Institute of International Education, which conducted a survey of 500 colleges, nearly half of the schools surveyed reported declines.
“While there are lots of variables that affect international enrollments,” Inside Higher Education recently concluded, “the drop in new students comes at a time when many in international education have expressed fears that the rhetoric and policies of President Trump could discourage some international students from enrolling at U.S. institutions. Among institutions that responded to the survey, 68 percent cited the visa application process or visa denials and delays as a reason for declining new enrollments, up 35 percentage points from last year, and 57 percent cited the social and political environment in the U.S., up 41 percentage points from last year.”
There are, of course, other reasons for the decline. Other countries, realizing how much foreign students can contribute, have stepped up their recruiting efforts. But they are doing so at a time when we are sending out signals to the world that immigrants are no longer welcome here.
The long-term implications for us are clear. Amir Reza, vice provost at Babson College, recently summed them up very clearly.
“The U.S. has benefited greatly from having large cohorts of some of the most talented individuals from other countries arriving, particularly for specialized graduate degrees,” she wrote. “If those individuals who are going to be stars in their fields are now deciding that Canada, Australia, the U.K., Germany or even China are the more appropriate destinations, what does that do for U.S. competitiveness 10 or 15 years from now?”

Unintended consequences.

Let’s keep them in mind as we debate new immigration policies during the coming months.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. senator from Delaware.

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