I don't know who needs to hear this, because this is such a common-sense among most people I know. But, I think the "international student ban" is sending a very negative message to those who, under normal circumstances, genuinely like or even love the United States.

Whether it is because they like the people, the culture, its freedom, it's social tolerance (relative to other places), or opportunities, etc. In fact, most of them are still staying in the States not because they have to, but because they still have hope. But they are losing it.

To be very honest, people from outside of the United States sometimes dislike or don't understand what is happening there politically and else.

People also said harsh things about students studying abroad. For international students, they are constantly taunted by peers from their homes as traitors of the countries or opportunist.

Worse so, international students are also discredited by the politicians at the receiving countries’ end, seeing them as parasites eating up the Social Welfare and benefits, even though studies have often shown that they are contributing far more than they are entitled to access.

Despite all these, most of the international students still choose to stay, work, and still fall in love with the place. Those of us, myself included, often feel fortunate that we can proudly introduce some of the best aspects of the U.S. to our friends and families back home.

There are things, people outside the U.S. often cannot fully understand, such as racism. At the very least, people need someone to remind them of the fact WHY there is such a rich and unfortunate history behind racial discrimination/structural segregation for the past century.

International students often fill in such a role. They travel with their personal stories and experience back home, informed people about WHY seemingly good people can be racist by saying things they think is benign.

International students, and former international students, are often the ONLY ally's US people can get in bridging those differences. They are important cultural ambassadors.

I think it is completely understandable that many people think international students are not their main concern, or they have more important matters to care about. This is a pandemic.

What I want to say here is this: international students are such important allies in such a difficult time that the people in the U.S. definitely do not want to lose.

If stated in a more practical sense, international students are the crucial strategic resource of the United States—although I really do not like it when people are described this way. International students make a literal business happen.

According to IIE 2018, International students contribute roughly 45 billion dollars annually to the U.S. economy.

International students can also become important political influences abroad. Take Taiwan for example. A very visible majority of Taiwanese government officials are running by U.S. educated scholars, including the former president and others in the executive branches.

Having those in-charge being educated in U.S. can boost the chance of cross-national collaborations and decrease the chance of international confrontations, which people from both sides could benefit from.

Finally, if we have to be very utilitarian, international students also have one of the most important functions: every international student is an expert on some kind of transnational mobility pathways.

This is particularly important for higher education that needs to attract international students and for high-tech industries that need talent.

Retaining every international student saves more economic costs for the United States because they will actively use their respective social relationships and resources to help the people around them understand the society they care about and want to integrate into.

Often students invest in those resources and relationships not based on economic considerations or rational calculations, but because they really care.

I studied sociology, and I studied international education. I guess that is why this feels both personal and academic for me. As almost every one of my friends on social media, I felt immense powerlessness after hearing the so-called “student-ban” on F-1, M-1, and J-1 visas.

What this meant was that after the order was passed, if students attend online-only programs, they are forced to leave the United States. They have no choice but to take a fully online course load, or either to choose between their health or their work/student status.

Over the years, I have been self-identified as international students among my peers, especially during my graduate school periods. I hang out with them, pampered by their hospitality, their well-cultured humor and wisdom, and most importantly, intellectual stimuli.

I almost always feel a slight sense of shame, because I’m not really “international student”, at least not in a legal sense. So I can sympathize with their pain, but not sharing them.

I grew up abroad, yes. Both of my parents are from Taiwan and currently are living in Taiwan. I spent most of my childhood and my grownup years and received education in Taiwan, not until I started my Ph.D. program in 2014.

But I have U.S. citizenship, due to sheer dumb luck, that my parents happen to decide to give birth to me in the U.S. when they were both international students here themselves over 30 years ago.

I won’t say this is an individual’s fault, or institutions’(but maybe leaving Trump administration out for an exception). Yet, I felt somewhat everyone more or less contribution to that process of alienating each other.