A “Perspectives” piece by Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology Chenyu Wang was recently published in The Washington Post. In “International students have long been a policy tool for U.S. leaders,” Wang traced the history of U.S. policy concerning students visiting from other countries and the political aspects of this international exchange.
Wang said that the Trump administration’s recent announcement requiring international students to leave the U.S. should their college offer only online instruction this fall “fits into this history by showing how the priorities of the U.S. government determine who gets admitted to study into the country.”
By allowing only those international students who are “willing to risk their [lives] in exchange for studying on a reopened college campus with in-person classes” to remain here, Wang said “the administration is apparently using foreign students to advance its domestic agenda by forcing U.S. colleges to open even during a global pandemic.”