\n<\/p>\n
On the same<\/span> day that a federal judge deemed Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s attempt to deport Mahmoud Khalil<\/a> on alleged \u201cforeign policy\u201d grounds likely unconstitutional, Rubio announced<\/a> in a gnomic statement that the Trump administration will \u201caggressively revoke\u201d visas of Chinese students, including those with \u201cties to the Chinese Communist Party\u201d or who are studying in \u201ccritical fields.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Little more detail was given. But it\u2019s clear that Rubio is weaponizing his legal purview, under the guise of foreign policy<\/a>, not just to crush dissent and target international students \u2014 but also to achieve President Donald Trump\u2019s goal of decimating U.S. higher education and producing an even more unequal United States.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Unlike some of the Trump administration\u2019s other malicious attacks<\/a> on international students, Rubio can do this. While federal judges have issued<\/a> and extended<\/a> injunctions in cases related to students\u2019 immigration statuses or enrollment, they have far less capacity to intervene here. Student visas, which are entry documents to the U.S. and separate from a student\u2019s immigration status, are under the remit of the State Department and outside the jurisdiction of domestic courts. Earlier this week, Rubio also ordered<\/a> a halt to all new interview appointments for international students applying for student visas.\u00a0<\/p>\n Four-year college degrees have never been a great equalizer, but their destruction helps ensure the right-wing fantasy of an uneducated underclass.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In terms of economic self interest, our trade-deficit-obsessed president is shooting himself in the foot by dismantling a major U.S. export: our world-class higher education system. In the last academic year, the U.S. hosted over 1.1 million international students, nearly two-thirds of whom were Chinese or Indian. International students in that year alone contributed<\/a> nearly $44 billion to the U.S. economy in terms of tuition fees and economic revenue generated. The loss of international students, many thousands of whom teach in Ph.D. and postdoctoral positions, would be an incalculable blow to knowledge production and education in this country \u2014 along with Trump\u2019s gutting of billions in federal funding for medical and scientific research. If the promise is \u201cAmerica First,\u201d Trump\u2019s assault on knowledge production is the revanchism of fools.\u00a0<\/p>\n But that, of course, is the Trump administration\u2019s aim.<\/p>\n The base-baiting attacks on elite institutions like Harvard will have far-reaching knock-on effects. Whole local economies are built around colleges all over the country, many of which lack the endowments to survive without international student tuition. Meanwhile, the Trump administration\u2019s decision to remove aid to lower-income college students who are parents<\/a> gives the lie to claims that only elite institutions are under threat.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n