Foreign Students in the US

My wife, who is a legal immigrant here on a student visa, had this experience at Immigration when we were returning from vacation in Mexico.

The Immigration official quizzed her about being a student and told her, "It's nice for you that <institution> awarded you a scholarship to study here, but you're taking money away from hardworking citizens who aren't paying to educate people like you!"

This is even though <institution> is a private organization and can choose to admit citizens or noncitizens to be educated, with or without financial support, as it pleases. It's not as if she and I, during our six years, have not paid plenty of taxes; but if a private educational institution wants to award financial support without discriminating between citizens and non-citizens, what's that to him, or you, or anyone?

She applied; they didn't have to let her in; and we're not going to apologize for that or suggest that they made a mistake. In fact, now that she has been appointed as an assistant professor at <highly respected top-ranking US business school>, the decision to let her in with financial support will result in hundreds of American students having the chance to benefit from her extraordinary mind.

Jeez.

Sorry about your wife's experience, but with the flood of illegals coming across, don't be surprised if legal Mexican immigrants get caught in the crossfire. Blame the illegals, they have created the atmosphere of hate.

Scarecrow,

I'm not Mexican, and neither is my wife: we are both (extremely) white British people. So it's not that the Immigration official confused us with Mexicans: it was clearly his opinion that ALL foreign students sponge off hardworking Americans.

Legal, in that case I would say you ran into a jerk mmigration official. Imagine that - a rude public servant.

Here in America, petty bureaucrats often use their little positions to make themselves feel important at others' expense.

People with British accents usually do quite well here and are made to feel welcome. We like hearing you speak.

Welcome to America (and I would say that if you WERE Mexican, as long as you came legally).

Sorry about your wife and thanks for posting the experience.

Things are going to get rough here.....Americans have had it with illegal immigration and we've recently discovered that somewhere along the line Globalists Interests had raised legal immigration numbers two-fold plus more through various visas.

Both illegal and excessive legal immigration have cost the American Worker $200 Billion in deflated wages and salaries according to a Harvard University Study prepared by their Economics Department and reported May 6, 2005.

While foreign student exchange programs are not responsible and have been long-standing mutually beneficial programs, many of the complexities of other immigration issues will get Mixed with programs such as the foreign student exchange program among Americans.

We are at a boiling point here.....and please explain that to your wife so she understands and does not take it personally.

I understand Great Britain and now France are experiencing similar illegal immigration issues. What is Great Britain doing about it? France is going to stop it. I understand from a news report that Great Britain had 3,000,000 enter last year or during the past couple of years?

You may be in a situation similar to ours. Let us know what you know about it as we believe this is a Global Movement which must be stopped and we could use the help of Great Britain and France to end this impending disaster before it goes any further here in the USA or elsewhere.

What element of business is your wife studying? She may have information for us about Globalisation which we OPPOSE and will not let fly here.

Judy,

Just because I moved here from Britain six years ago doesn't mean I can speak authoritatively about the situation in either Britain or France. As far as I understand it, Britain has about 3 million illegal immigrants present in the country, but it stands to reason that they would not all have come in either last year or over the last few years.

Did the Harvard study also examine the positive effect of lower prices for consumer goods on the economy arising out of the availability of immigrant workers?

I don't think it's acceptable to mix up the illegal immigration issue with the legal immigration issue. Legal immigrants bring substantial benefits to American society, and it would be good if ALIPAC recognized that.

I will not disclose further information about my wife that would enable her identification in a public forum. I want to be able to discuss immigration issues here freely without bringing any risk to her or to me. But you should know that I am not an opponent of globalization, and neither is she.

Yes, when I applied for FEDERAL financial aid in 1984 at my state University I was told to go to hell basically....to white and too male?

The State Department gives our tax money for foreign students to come here and study...It is a program of the Agency for International Development. Why? So they will "like us" if they even go home hahaha!

Or go home to Jordan and join Al Qaeda or help Iran with a NUKE.

I am GLAD that officer said what he said to your wife. This country should take care of its own first!

So what you're saying is this? -

that there is something unfair about you, in your particular situation, being denied federal financial aid in 1984 at a public university, that makes you think it reasonable that my wife should have been denied financial support from a private university in 1999? She was not eligible for Pell Grants or for any other form of federal financial aid, precisely because she is an immigrant, so what is your problem with a private institution deciding to support her financially anyway?

What possible connection could there even hypothetically be between the one event and the other?

I am also not sure about the connection you are trying to draw between private (or public, you don't make it clear) universities' willingness to admit students irrespective of nationality, and terrorism. Are you suggesting that foreign students, being foreign, are potential terrorists and should therefore never receive any financial assistance from American universities or be admitted to them? (Trying to understand your reasoning here). If that is what you're saying, then what evidence do you have that my wife actually has any terrorist sympathies? If not all foreign students are in fact potential terrorists, then what is your argument as to why my wife should not have received any financial assistance from her private university?

If you were offered financial support to study at Oxford, say a Rhodes Scholarship like Clinton had, would you take the opportunity, or would you refuse it on the grounds that Oxford should educate its own first?