Comments
By adamors 2025-05-2217:52 Don’t miss this bit. Currently enrolled students are going to need to find a new university.
> In a news release, the Department of Homeland Security sent a stark message to Harvard’s international students: “This means Harvard can no longer enroll foreign students, and existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status.”
I don't get how DHS has control over what universities foreign students can attend. Either than can attend school in the US or not. Saying they have to transfer from Harvard to another American university is total abuse of power. Surely there are lawsuits in the works over this.
By throwaway219450 2025-05-2223:22 The F/J exhange visa is tied to a specific sponsor (ie the University) for a very specific goal. There are a lot of restrictions on what you can and can't do. If your visa sponsor has its privilege revoked then presumably you have a choice to transfer to a different institute, if one will take you, or leave the country.
There is a mechanism for that transfer built into the visa, which could be used for example if your professor moved institutions and wanted to re-hire you to fulfil the original goals of your exchange program.
It's unclear if this affects all foreign academic staff, many of whom who would be on the J, or just the F visa.
Edit: apparently all exhange visas.
By GuinansEyebrows 2025-05-2222:223 reply i'd guess this kind of thing (per-institutional authorization to allow international students) was intended to provide the government a way to revoke that right from "sham" institutions (wonder if Trump University ever had international students?) or ones that otherwise were obviously trying to facilitate students skirting or abusing immigration law.
not that i agree with that anyways (citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah) but it's pretty clear we're currently dealing with a regime that's willing to use ambiguous regulations in malicious ways (no comment on previous regimes, they're all bad, don't call me a HN Democrat or whatever).
By LightHugger 2025-05-2222:412 reply Chesterton's fence is way too relevant, when it comes to the "citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah" part.
It seems that the amount of fences is growing up exponentially. To the point that we are all corralled. Not so long time ago people could move from country to country relatively freely. Now it is a fucking tragedy
>Not so long time ago people could move from country to country relatively freely
The well-off rich and upper middle-class could move from country to country relatively freely, or immigrants who intended not to look back. Which puts a strong pressure on self-selection on the type of people coming into a country.
That time isn't now, with cheap airfares and the internet, it's much more easier for anyone to come in, often with no intention of integration and bringing their own sectarian politics in. When the time comes, how many of these immigrants do you think will fight for their host country? Especially if said host country make likely come into conflict with their homelands.
By FpUser 2025-05-2816:52 >"When the time comes, how many of these immigrants do you think will fight for their host country? Especially if said host country make likely come into conflict with their homelands."
Same arguments were just as valid 100-200 years ago where virtually anyone could move anywhere.
By GuinansEyebrows 2025-05-2223:49 well, it'd be relevant if i was actually discussing the idea of immediately abolishing all borders and countries, which i'm definitely not doing here.
By H4X0R112 2025-05-3016:25 Even in the Pre-Industrial Age, Obvious differences existed between class hierarchy or ethnicities. When an Empire does not specifically identify with one or two ethnicities, most societies have always been wary of foreigners by calling them "Barbarians". Chichimecas, Mongols, Non-Greeks, Non-Han Chinese, etc.
> not that i agree with that anyways (citizenship is stupid, borders are stupid, countries are stupid blah blah blah)
Millions of people worldwide have values that are radically different from yours or mine or >99% of people reading this. Consider, a country like Afghanistan-no doubt there are millions of Afghans who oppose the Taliban and are trapped under the rule of a government whose policies and values they radically oppose - and they are denied any realistic outlet to advocate for change using non-violent means-but, at the same time, there are also millions of Afghans who support the Taliban, who think it is great and its values and laws and policies and actions are all wonderful-do you really want millions of pro-Taliban Afghans to be allowed to move to your country if they want to and can afford to do so, and be allowed to vote in your elections as soon as they turn up? This isn’t saying we should ban immigrants or refugees from Afghanistan, only have some kind of filtering process which excludes those with radically opposed values, such as those who are pro-Taliban - and, so nobody thinks I’m singling out Afghans for special treatment, there are several other countries for which the same concern exists (consider e.g. Iran, North Korea), and such a “filtering process” can be designed to work in a way which treats immigrants/refugees of different nationalities/ethnicities/religions equally. But complete abolition of citizenship and immigration control would leave your country at the mercy of chance in terms of protection against takeover by newcomers with radically different values, and although in the short-run you’d escape that outcome (even if they were all free to come, most of them either don’t want to or can’t afford to), in the long-run the odds that you’d succumb to it only go up. And such a policy is fundamentally unstable, in that it would eventually become the cause of its own demise: once these newcomers with radically different values (whatever those values might be) take over, their new values will cause them to reinstate immigration and citizenship controls, to prevent anyone else doing to them what they did to you.
That’s not to say I agree with what the Trump administration is doing here - I actually sympathise with some conservative criticisms of Harvard, but this isn’t a gentle federal nudge in the right direction, it is attacking Harvard with a legally dubious sledgehammer - but just because an administration abuses immigration laws (something many governments around the world have done many times before) doesn’t change the fact that some degree of legal control of immigration and naturalisation is the right thing to have in principle
By amanaplanacanal 2025-05-233:241 reply The US had no immigration laws for the first 100 years, during which time many of our ancestors came here. The only reason we had any immigration laws to begin with was racism against Chinese people. Now we are making up other excuses for it, based on no evidence whatsoever.
By skissane 2025-05-234:51 > The US had no immigration laws for the first 100 years,
The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited US citizenship by naturalisation to “free white persons” of “good moral character” - yes, it didn’t technically bar immigration from people who didn’t meet that criterion, but it reduced them to an underclass who were denied citizenship - and this was prior to the 14th Amendment, so there was no constitutional right to birthright citizenship even for their children born in the US.
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 (still on the books but long dormant until recently revived by Trump) gave the federal government the power to deport citizens of countries at war with the US - effectively banning them from immigrating. The Alien Friends Act of 1798 allowed the President to deport any foreigner based on the President’s subjective determination that they were “dangerous”- however, it expired in 1800 and was not renewed.
In the early years of US independence, there were state laws enabling deportation of immigrants - e.g. in 1794 Massachusetts responded to the “problem” of poor Irish immigrants with a state law authorising their deportation back to Ireland, and several were actually deported under this Act. While nowadays, state-level deportation laws would surely be struck down as intruding into an exclusive federal domain, the lack of broad federal deportation statutes for much of the 18th/19th centuries left open a (since closed) constitutional space in which state-level deportation laws could exist
Even prior to US independence, British law gave the colonial authorities the power to deport people they viewed as undesirable - rarely exercised, but it legally existed - and the main reason they rarely exercised it was they didn’t get many “undesirable” immigrants turning up
Note I’m not defending these laws - judged by today’s standards they were racist and deeply unfair - just pointing out that the “first 100 years” of the US wasn’t as “open borders” as you paint it as having been
And while no doubt historically (and even today) many immigration laws have been racist in their terms, motivation, or implementation - I don’t think the idea of having some restrictions on immigration is inherently racist. Almost every country on earth (even non-Western) nowadays has laws saying people convicted of very serious crimes cannot immigrate without special permission - is it “racist” if Botswana says to someone just released from serving a 20 year prison sentence for terrorism “sorry, we don’t want you”?
By computerthings 2025-05-237:07 [dead]
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2221:138 reply Which isn’t at all how PhD programs work. This is a supreme dick move to students are going to be forced to leave with an AbD for no other reason than Trumps ego.
This is going to burn the children of the most powerful families across the world. Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard. Destroying their children’s education out of a fit of malice is going to haunt him, and America on top of all the other stuff America is doing to the world.
America first is rapidly becoming America alone.
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2319:031 reply Here’s a case in point - future queen of Belgium kicked out of college by the president of the United States:
https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5316202-future-queen-...
By bergerjac 2025-05-3015:17 Considering it’s not 1733, a future Belgian monarch has almost zero power.
By kbigdelysh 2025-05-250:031 reply You're very wrong if you think harvard accepts children of dictators and monarchies for its graduate programs. It's near impossible to get into those program except if you are a genius (exceptionally high GPA and GRE grades, published valuable scientific papers in prestigious journals). Just check the graduate student's directory to see what I mean.
By bongoman42 2025-05-272:10 Or have the right demographic details.
children of the most powerful families across the world
I doubt that most of those people are reliant on student visas.
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2314:48 The students absolutely are. Up until now the law applies to everyone. Now, their applications were probably rapidly approved unlike many international students. But there’s no carve out for being powerful (yet).
By moralestapia 2025-05-238:164 reply You cannot jump over immigration requirements "just because you're powerful", and the vast majority of them are not US citizens.
By londons_explore 2025-05-2312:071 reply They could easily get an E2 entrepreneur visa, and the necessary cash is as little as $300k, most of which can be withdrawn later, so it's effectively a free citizenship as long as you have cash.
By EduardoBautista 2025-05-2321:52 E2 visa is not available to everyone. Notably Indian and Chinese citizens are not eligible. And that is a large chunk of international students.
By ndsipa_pomu 2025-05-2314:432 reply You could probably get round immigration requirements by "gifting" a jet or something
By lightbendover 2025-05-2515:05 [dead]
By moralestapia 2025-05-2315:551 reply [flagged]
"That's a fantasy" is just substance-free scoffing, be specific. Ex:
1. "Trump isn't that corrupt."
2. "They'll try, but federal law will successfully interrupt the bribe at some stage."
3. "That hyper-exact event is improbable... but perhaps a slightly different favor or a different way of Trump extracting personal gain."
P.S.: For more context, two days ago Trump's Secretary of Commerce was promoting website to go live this week for selling (personally invented, illegal) "Gold Card" visas. https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/21/business/us-gold-card-investo...
By moralestapia 2025-05-2414:171 reply >be specific
Again, again, again ...
I don't have to! Because I didn't bring the argument into the conversation.
Burden of proof [1] should be a required reading before posting on this site.
Even the upcoming "Gold Card" visas you mention, which are indeed the closest thing to this idea, come with some additional requirements that no money in the world can circumvent.
It is a fantasy, whether you all like it or not. Life is not a James Bond movie.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
> Burden of proof [1] should be a required reading before posting on this site.
Ironic, then, that you don't understand it. You've confused "Burden of proof" with "Burden of imagining an argument for someone else who was too lazy to actually make one."
Let's try that out: "If you disagree with me, you are wrong and insane, because of reasons that you will have to find for yourself. Insert evil cackle here."
> Even the upcoming "Gold Card" visas [...] come with some additional requirements that no money in the world can circumvent.
Oh my, look! A golden opportunity for you to show off your honest commitment to (real) Burden of Proof.
Yes, share with us these unnamed "additional requirements" you claim exist. (Hopefully not inside an invisible dragon in your garage.)
Since you assert they are not subject to corrupt presidential whims and waivers, that must mean they are federal statute, in which case linking to them should be a breeze.
By moralestapia 2025-05-251:561 reply The burden of proof is on -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44073365
I didn't write that, I'm only contesting it.
Make an effort, buddy, I know you can grasp it.
By Terr_ 2025-05-256:29 > The burden of proof is on
Nobody even asked you to "prove" something, you were only asked to give an actual argument instead of a flat denial. Stop pretending like you're some kind of victim of unreasonable requests.
> Even the upcoming "Gold Card" visas [...] come with some additional requirements that no money in the world can circumvent.
Again, link to them, ya hypocrite.
By mandmandam 2025-05-238:42 > You cannot jump over immigration requirements
You probably will be able to soon though, and it 'only' costs $5m: "A ‘Trump Card Visa’ Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms" [0]
I couldn't blame you for not having seen this though. It was quickly flagged and never whitelisted; like so, so many other important stories here this past few months. Check my favorites for more falsely flagged stories.
By anigbrowl 2025-05-263:47 [delayed]
He's 78 and at the end of his political career in few years, he could care less.
By loloquwowndueo 2025-05-2223:272 reply He couldn’t care less.
By redcobra762 2025-05-2223:341 reply Or maybe he could care less, but doesn't even bother to care less because caring less would exert effort and he doesn't care enough to exert any effort.
By loloquwowndueo 2025-05-2223:452 reply Own the grammar mistake, my dude :)
By AlecSchueler 2025-05-239:491 reply He could care less is the common phrase by now, even if it doesn't make literal sense.
By lern_too_spel 2025-05-2316:031 reply "Could care less" used as a snarky response makes sense, as in, "I could care less, but I don't want to put in the effort." Using that phrase without a sarcastic intonation is still incorrect.
By AlecSchueler 2025-05-2319:071 reply Could care less meaning couldn't care less. It's the same thing as how literally has come to be used with the meaning of figuratively. If you look up "could care less" in the OED you'll find it lists it under American English with the meaning "could not care less."
By loloquwowndueo 2025-05-2513:43 That’s disappointing. What next? Americans get a pass on using “it’s” when the correct thing would be “its” just because they do it all the time?
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2314:49 This is a tour of vengeance, creating a place in history, establishing a family dynasty of inherited power, and a smatter of narcissistic delusion.
Making the government small enough to drown in the bathtub? (Grover Norquist's goal)
By goodluckchuck 2025-05-2310:191 reply [flagged]
By goodluckchuck 2025-05-2311:00 [flagged]
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2314:563 reply I actually think indoctrinating their children in western human liberalism -is- a feature. But whether it’s a feature or a flaw, it’s an aspect of having the best brand on earth that those with the most money aspire to it. If you’re in an African country Harvard degrees are extremely prestigious, more so than in America, so the drive to attain it is even greater - even if it’s largely limited to the wealthy. But not entirely - Harvard is need blind and pays 100% of the way for many international students. You are either there because you’re exceptional or exceptionally rich.
The culture that prevails at Harvard isn’t Americanism. It’s elitist managerialism and liberal internationalism. It’s an ideology that children of foreign elites can easily assimilate into, because they come from cultures where better people rule over “the masses.” (Remember, aristocrats think that their status is a kind of meritocracy.) Actual Brahmins assimilate easily into Boston Brahminism.
What defines Americanism is a quote I love attributed to Bill Buckley:
> I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.
Remember that Buckley was as close as it gets to being an american aristocrat. But the sentiment reflects an american tradition where people in elite positions are expected to, at least outwardly, express embarrassment or skepticism about their own status. America a country of yeoman farmers.
By chipsrafferty 2025-05-2316:561 reply > I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.
Changing my last name to Aaaaaaaaaaaa now.
By MrFots 2025-05-2318:05 FONZIE!
By FilosofumRex 2025-05-245:06 > You are either there because you’re exceptional or exceptionally rich.
Or a certain skin color known for their personality... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-universities-p...
By ashoeafoot 2025-05-2413:331 reply By that logic slavery should have been abolished by the reeducated elite in the middle east years ago. The education does nothing but provide connections.
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2416:551 reply Wait what? Outside of ISIS and groups like that there is no slavery legal in any country. Kafala isn’t actually slavery, despite its abuses. And middle eastern countries have become substantial more liberal humanist during the last 50 years which is assuredly a result of cultural exchange. King Abdullah II in Jordan, Malik Dalan, Osama El-Baz, etc the list of active reformers that are Harvard alum and power brokers in Arabic counties is long. Longer still are the people who don’t get headlines for liberal reform but push the society leftward year over year. Even hard core counties like Saudi Arabia are significantly more open and liberal than they were 50 years ago.
By ashoeafoot 2025-05-2417:53 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Libya
not really up to date with reality are we? there are tons of "permanently employed illegals" with dubious chances of payment . Half the fighting done in libya, sudan, yemen is done by refugees pressured into service.
By victorbjorklund 2025-05-2313:471 reply That makes no sense. In what way is all well-off families in South Korea or Japan evil?
Nobody said “evil.” But do you think it’s a good thing for ordinary americans to have the children of chaebols owners rubbing shoulders with the children of Fortune 500s CEOs?
…Yes? This is the foundational concept underlying free speech and liberal education.
In a liberal society ideas live and die by their merits and we all benefit by the best ideas floating to the top.
I don’t think there’s anything “liberal” about facilitating the a borderless global elite. People can say whatever they want; Americans don’t need to issue everyone visas to come say things in person. The internet exists.
Is it better that the child of a despot learns at home or in the United States where ideas rule all?
By bamboozled 2025-05-2221:361 reply Monarchies, dictators, owners of international conglomerates, etc all send their kids to Harvard
When you frame it like this... it doesn't sound like such a loss. But yeah, it's not the only way to frame it.
By lobsterthief 2025-05-2222:163 reply The percentage of Harvard international students who fall into this category is statistically insignificant. It’s not even worth framing.
It's not about the percentage of Harvard international students who fall into this category, it's about the percentage of students in this category who go to Harvard.
By BobaFloutist 2025-05-2223:461 reply Also fairly low. There's plenty of high-prestige institutions in the world.
As someone from europe I'd say Harvard and MIT are the #1 prestige institutions, and a lot of people will not settle for less.
A lot? Those institutions only accept a relatively small total number of foreign students. Everyone else has to "settle for less" whether they want to or not.
By chipsrafferty 2025-05-2316:541 reply If Dad gifts a new building on campus you odds at getting accepted go up tenfold.
By s1artibartfast 2025-05-2320:201 reply I dont see why that is ever considered a problem. They are literally a private institution selling a service. Why shouldn't you be able to pay your way to the front of the line.
By BobaFloutist 2025-05-2323:171 reply It's fine as long as they're open about it. It's when they say "We're a very selective institution that only accepts the academic best of the best from the entire world" and then also allow pay to play, clarifying "Also the people whose parents donated us buildings juuuuust so happen to be the academic best of the best from the the entire world" that people start to question just how selective admission really is, and just how world-class their student body and standards really are.
If they kept stats on who was an endowment/legacy admit and gave them a different colored diploma so people could filter them out when assessing things like grades and graduation rate and they didn't effect the curve I think there would be less criticism of the process.
By s1artibartfast 2025-05-245:311 reply I think they do keep stats on legacy admits.
I dont see why they would get different diplomas provided they complete the same coursework. If they are inferior, they should only help others on the curve.
I do think they would be more upfront about options for entry.
By BobaFloutist 2025-05-2423:141 reply >If they are inferior, they should only help others on the curve.
Not if they're given unearned grades
By SR2Z 2025-05-3012:14 Everyone at Harvard is given unearned grades. It's the poster child for GPA inflation.
I forget the exact stat, but I think the median GPA there is about an A-.
By BrandoElFollito 2025-05-2419:43 Depends in what. HEC in France is the top for finance.
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2415:40 There is no need for there to be one and only one such institution.
By BobaFloutist 2025-05-2314:471 reply MIT, really? I think of MIT as being high prestige mostly for people that actually want a science or tech-related career, not for old-money people looking to make family connections.
By FilosofumRex 2025-05-245:251 reply > MIT as being high prestige mostly for people that actually want a science or tech-related career...
Apparently you've not been to MIT in a while - it offers degrees in business management, finance, plus 17 in arts, humanities, and social sciences, not to mention grad programs. MIT admits more than its fair share of fruit-cakes with money:
By BobaFloutist 2025-05-283:36 Believe it or not, I've never been to MIT.
By fnordpiglet 2025-05-2314:53 As a percentage of -students- yes but as a percentage of world power children? That’s a much smaller cohort, and is the cohort that matters in this context.
By victorbjorklund 2025-05-2313:481 reply That is just insane. How much do you think it costs or how poor do you think people in say france are where only criminals can afford it?
I didn’t say France, did I? I’m talking about africa, the middle east, much of asia, and parts of eastern europe. E.g.., maybe not Poland, but probably Russia.
Then you should be more specific instead of using weasel words like “much of the world”.
Asia, Middle East, and Africa are literally “much of the world.” They account for the vast majority of the world’s population.
By mulmen 2025-05-2717:48 There are a lot of ways to group countries and form a majority of the global population. You left it open to interpretation.
It’s still unclear to me why Africa, the Middle East, much (which part?) of Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe are uniquely capable of political corruption that France and Poland are not.
By _DeadFred_ 2025-05-2318:411 reply I remember when you claimed the APA didn't apply to this. At least now you don't bother to defend based on legality and are cool with forcing your 'totally not corrupt' single totalitarian viewpoint on the country in order to counter... corrupt totalitarianism.
Get rid of Harvard and the person you mentioned would just... go somewhere else. You aren't actually advocated FOR anything, just saying 'there are bad people in the world'. Um, ok, yeah, we know that. That's why we disagree with you empowering those we see as bad people but that you defend illegally empowering/illegal behavior of because you happen to agree with them.
The APA doesn’t apply to this—issuing visas as a discretionary function of the executive, and thus unreviewable under section 701(a)(2). Where am I being inconsistent?
Have any of the challenges to the administration prevailed on APA grounds in an appellate court?
By _DeadFred_ 2025-05-2421:551 reply "In an appellate court" doing a lot of heavy lifting for you, isn't it? How many APA cases has this administration lost in district courts?
By rayiner 2025-05-254:03 Lawyers rely on appellate court decisions to understand what the law actually is or isn’t. District court orders granting TROs don’t even include meaningful legal reasoning. Lots of these are being overturned. E.g. https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/nx-s1-5407923/voa-voice-of-am....
The Supreme Court stands ready to overturn Humphreys Executor. https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-bl.... The prospect of the Supreme Court upholding using the APA to challenge direct presidential action is nil. Courts aren’t empowered to micromanage discretionary presidential actions.
The cases where appellate courts have upheld injunctions against the administration have been mainly on due process and first amendment groups. Courts are empowered to protect individual rights from executive action.
By monkey_monkey 2025-05-2312:292 reply [flagged]
By dang 2025-05-2518:29 Please don't cross into name-calling or personal attack, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. We've had to ask you this more than once before and your account has unfortunately been continuing to break the rules pretty badly.
I used that example because it’s my family. My mom’s family’s landholdings have grown in value as our capital city grows, so my aunts and uncles are selling plots and buying houses in California in cash. This is after distributing my grandfather’s estate among a dozen kids. From a country where the per-capita GDP is $2,400 per year. How do you think that happened? This background is table stakes for being part of the 0.1% that has the means to emigrate out of these countries and send their kids to elite American schools.
By victorbjorklund 2025-05-2313:501 reply [flagged]
By rayiner 2025-05-2314:25 I don’t think my family was involved in corruption. But they are part of a landed gentry class that cooperated with the British colonial administration. My mom’s surname is an honorific reserved for people in a high position within a rigid class hierarchy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begum
But yes, I think that, in the aggregate, it’s not good to have a large number of people like me injected straight into America’s major institutions. We dilute what I think is a core american value against elitism and hierarchy. And our presence gives our home grown elite permission to drop certain beneficial safeguards on their behavior, such as the WASP taboo against conspicuous consumption. This is highly visible in Northern Virginia where I grew up. It was always full of elites, but now it’s full of elites that don’t feel pressured to keep a low profile and at least pretend they’re not elites.
By kristopolous 2025-05-2222:416 reply Ah yes, this is how we will be competitive - defunding universities, deporting the best and brightest, dismantling education, and cutting off trade.
I mean seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?
They (the current administration) doesn't want to be competitive. They want to be in full control and willing to destroy any institution, organization or person that opposes them, internal or external.
By schnitzelstoat 2025-05-2313:54 It's like he read Why Nations Fail as a guidebook.
By spacemadness 2025-05-231:526 reply Can we say "fascism" out loud yet or are moderates still pretending everything is fine?
By esseph 2025-05-232:03 [flagged]
By anonfordays 2025-05-2422:293 reply The other side four years ago:
Can we say "Marxism" out loud yet or are moderates still pretending everything is fine?
By anonfordays 2025-05-2514:26 [flagged]
By kristopolous 2025-05-271:511 reply were the banks nationalized? All capital over 1 million seized and redistributed? Private property collectivized? Abandoned properties commandeered for the homeless by the state? I must have missed it.
What's "communism" now? The public park? A library? What's the current communist thing that makes you couch faint?
By anonfordays 2025-06-0314:491 reply were the death camps created? all minorities sized and placed into camps? all members of society involved in the war effort? expansionist wars being started? I must have missed it.
What's "fascism" now? Enforcing borders? Deporting illegal immigrants? What's the current fascist thing that makes you couch faint?
By kristopolous 2025-06-1511:571 reply I never called it fascism. But doing things like tackling senators for asking questions in a public hearing and snatching children up off the street to send them off to forever jail doesn't look great.
I'm sure you'll defend it though, this guy has an R next to his name and you're on team R!
(I'm not on team D btw and never was so you can drop that pretext right now)
By anonfordays 2025-06-208:25 I never called it marxism. But doing things like attempting to subvert democracy by banning your opponent from running and groomimg and mutilating children doesn't look great.
I'm sure you'll defend it though, this guy has an D next to his name and you're on team D!
(I'm not on team R btw and never was so you can drop that pretext right now)
By const_cast 2025-05-263:351 reply Marxism is when ultra-capitalist slightly right leaning politicians make boring policies to further enrich the American capitalist class. Oh and also some token "woke" stuff that doesn't really help anyone but I guess doesn't make anything worse either.
There's not a single Marxist in American politics at any level of power that matters. We have two neo-liberal parties that are both right leaning. One is ultra-right and one is ever so slightly right leaning.
AOC and Sanders wanted a JOB GUARANTEE as part of the GND. The "one-time wealth tax" is confiscation and redistribution.
That's sure as hell not capitalism.
In what world is a party advocating for universal healthcare, free college, and expanded immigration "slightly right?"
By const_cast 2025-06-011:371 reply > In what world is a party advocating for universal healthcare, free college, and expanded immigration "slightly right?"
1. Most of that party is not advocating for that, those are actually fairly fringe beliefs.
2. Our fellow capitalistic allies in the west have all of that.
3. The closest things the dems tried to universal healthcare was the ACA, and despite being obvious legislation, was fought tooth and nail. You had droves of people legitimately arguing that insurers SHOULD be able to drop you for pre-existing conditions. That's how unbelievably fucking propagandized our population is. We're advocating against ourselves every day.
> 1. Most of that party is not advocating for that, those are actually fairly fringe beliefs.
They were literally in Biden's platform. If Biden didn't stand for "most of the party" IDK what to tell you.
> 2. Our fellow capitalistic allies in the west have all of that.
Sort of - but they are also significantly poorer on an individual basis, and the US beats them on important quality-of-life measures (living space, degree attainment, etc.) Many of them have private healthcare systems and require students to pay for college.
> 3. The closest things the dems tried to universal healthcare was the ACA, and despite being obvious legislation, was fought tooth and nail. You had droves of people legitimately arguing that insurers SHOULD be able to drop you for pre-existing conditions. That's how unbelievably fucking propagandized our population is. We're advocating against ourselves every day.
Democrats are not a right-wing party because Trump or "swing voters" exist.
By const_cast 2025-06-0123:511 reply > They were literally in Biden's platform
Uh, no. Universal healthcare and free college were not in the platform. Expanding the ACA and programs like Medicaid is not universal healthcare. There are almost zero politicians currently advocating we completely abolish private insurers. In addition, loan forgiveness is also not free college.
> Sort of - but they are also significantly poorer on an individual basis, and the US beats them on important quality-of-life measures
And the US also loses on many important quality-of-life measurements. For example, we pay significantly more per person for healthcare while simultaneously having significantly worse healthcare outcomes. Gee, I wonder why?
> Democrats are not a right-wing party because Trump or "swing voters" exist.
My point more so was that the ACA was incredibly reasonable and obvious and still shocking unpopular. Even among the democrats, there were some at the time claiming it went too far.
To this day, the ACA is still a common punching bag for a variety of politicians and constituents.
Ultimately, the democrats are trying to win over moderate and on-the-fence voters. That means they're trying to be slightly more left of the republican party, but not by much. When the republican party is far-right, as it currently is, we then have to ask ourselves: where do we land if we're trying to be slightly left of that? It's not socialism, I'll tell you that.
By SR2Z 2025-06-050:26 > There are almost zero politicians currently advocating we completely abolish private insurers.
This is not universal healthcare either, and many countries achieve universal coverage without single-payer. I would encourage you to look this up.
> In addition, loan forgiveness is also not free college.
Dude, seriously? Biden proposed free college for families making less than $125k/yr. I'm not gonna shadow box with you, this stuff was literally written down.
You are making an excellent point about the informedness of the average voter, here.
> For example, we pay significantly more per person for healthcare while simultaneously having significantly worse healthcare outcomes. Gee, I wonder why?
Obesity, for the outcomes. The price is good old-fashioned regulatory capture :)
> My point more so was that the ACA was incredibly reasonable and obvious and still shocking unpopular. Even among the democrats, there were some at the time claiming it went too far.
Healthcare is a full FIFTH of all economic activity in the US. The ACA was stuffed full of compromises and carve-outs to get those people on board. There's no faceless villain here, there were plenty of people with skin in the game if you're looking to blame someone.
> That means they're trying to be slightly more left of the republican party, but not by much. When the republican party is far-right, as it currently is, we then have to ask ourselves: where do we land if we're trying to be slightly left of that? It's not socialism, I'll tell you that.
If Bernie Sanders cannot even win with Democrats in the primary process, he would be smoked in the general election. That's basic numeracy. And no, the party did not railroad him - he was actually just not very popular outside of college students. The US is further right than Europe or whatever other "true left" place you want to name, and our politics reflect that.
Trump won because those in control of the Democratic Party underestimated the anger and economic desperation of the working class.
They can’t afford rent or groceries. Medical and dental care are a distant dream. If the Democrats only messaging is DEI, inclusivity and girl/woman power… they view the Democrats as out of touch. It is the equivalent of Let Them Eat Cake or brioche.
And I do believe in DEI, inclusivity and women’s rights. But if the working class are struggling, it is tragically comic not to address their primary concerns first.
By mrbigbob 2025-05-2314:00 I agree, it was very annoying hearing how great the economy was doing when inflation and just the general cost of living rose significantly starting with covid and when anyone tried to have a talk about that a lot of people would just parrot how great the economy was doing and everyone they knew was doing fine. thats great for you but that doesnt mean what your experiencing is what a lot of other people are.
> If the Democrats only messaging is DEI, inclusivity and girl/woman power
If you didn't pay any attention to the last campaign, just say so. It was not the Democrats who spent a billion dollars running a campaign on identity politics. This attempted retconning something that millions of people were forced to sit through is embarrassing, and you should absolutely feel bad.
By femiagbabiaka 2025-05-2313:351 reply The Democrats refusing to admit the economy was terrible for working people was enough. Of course it will be worse now.
> The Democrats refusing to admit the economy was terrible for working people was enough.
That's a fine topic for a real conversation, but it was 100% not what the person I replied to was talking about.
> Of course it will be worse now.
Yes. So the Democrat's message of "The economy is improving" is a bad lie even though it was true, and "I'll make the economy the best ever" is a good lie even though it's false?
By femiagbabiaka 2025-05-2316:49 > Yes. So the Democrat's message of "The economy is improving" is a bad lie even though it was true, and "I'll make the economy the best ever" is a good lie even though it's false?
Yes, unfortunately, because an incumbent has to run against the state of the world during the election cycle, and their opponent gets to run against it. And yes, Trump created the terrible economy that Biden inherited. But it doesn't matter. Kamala and her campaign should've realized that early and switched course.
By bluefirebrand 2025-05-2315:201 reply > "The economy is improving" is a bad lie even though it was true
It doesn't matter if it is true, when it isn't really benefitting your average person in any meaningful way
> "I'll make the economy the best ever" is a good lie even though it's false?
You have to understand that the lie Trump is telling isn't "I'll make the economy better", it is "I am going to make it so you, a person, has more money and can afford things you want to buy"
Average People don't care about "the economy" they care about their bank accounts and their ability to buy and own things they want to buy
Trump makes empty promises that he will make people's actual lives better in ways that matter to them
The Democrats make empty promises that they will make "society" better, whatever that means.
> The Democrats make empty promises that they will make "society" better, whatever that means.
Don't we, in fact, live in a society? I'm pretty sure someone told me that once.
By bluefirebrand 2025-05-2318:06 We sure do!
But I don't really believe that many of the problems in society can be improved by the government from the top down
Some can, like access to healthcare and regulations and such
But most problems in society today imo are caused by trying to offload social responsibility to the government and corporations rather than people living in their communities
Trump won, because he and project 2025 represent what conservative Christians want and because republican party want it. And people forever blaming anyone else are just enablers. This has nothing to do with what democrats do or signal. That is utterly irrelevant.
Republicans are the ones bringing up gender, trans issues etc into discussion again and again. Not democrats.
> They can’t afford rent or groceries. Medical and dental care are a distant dream.
No, because vote for Trump and republicans is vote for higher prices, more expensive healthcare and tax cuts for rich. Every single time. This is not about how economy is doing in reality. It is not about what democrats signal. Republicans will lie, fox news will like and media will both side it.
> And I do believe in DEI, inclusivity and women’s rights. But if the working class are struggling, it is tragically comic not to address their primary concerns first.
Women are working class and struggling. And working class economical concerns are not addressed by republicans at all ... and democrats were not running on dei.
Yes, this is what I mean by not taking responsibility for their beliefs. They can't just admit they like Trump because of doing things like illegal impoundment or trying to get Harvard to install conservative commissars. It's always about the Democrats forcing them to vote for fascists. I doubt the people saying this on Hacker News and political boards are ever working class, either.
You’ve got a severe case of TDS. I voted for Trump. I did it in 2016 and 2020 and 2024. And you don’t know anything about me.
You like to cry “fascism! Fascism!” while you turn a blind eye to ‘Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard’, to the deterioration of the economy, and to the social cohesion of the US at large. To be so blinded by your rage that you can’t look past Trump’s demeanor and actually look at his performance tells me you’re out of touch. If the egg prices aren’t concerning you, then you are in no place to talk about what is motivating commonfolk who voted for trump. By the way, this all started because elites like Hillary openly showed contempt for working class folk with her “basket of diplorables” statements. I voted for Trump because he represents my interests. Maybe if the left didn’t hate me for being a cis white male, I wouldn’t be so inclined to vote for him out of spite. But make no mistake, you’re not in the party of love and acceptance just because you voted for the other guy. You very much have a lot of hate in your heart. And if you feel like punching my face right now, just know that you are everything you claim to hate so much.
By the_why_of_y 2025-05-2411:591 reply > By the way, this all started because elites like Hillary openly showed contempt for working class folk with her “basket of diplorables” statements.
What Clinton actually said:
https://www.npr.org/2016/09/10/493427601/hillary-clintons-ba...
> "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.
> "But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
Why, isn't that exactly the opposite meaning of how you summarized it? She literally said that these disappointed working class people who support Trump are not deplorable!
By rawgabbit 2025-05-2520:00 Quote from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables
After the election, Diane Hessan, who had been hired by the Clinton campaign to track undecided voters, wrote in The Boston Globe that "all hell broke loose" after the "basket of deplorables" comment, which prompted what she saw as the largest shift of undecided voters towards Trump.[40] Political scientist Charles Murray said, in a post-election interview with Sam Harris, that because the comment helped get Donald Trump elected, it had "changed the history of the world, and he [Haidt] may very well be right. That one comment by itself may have swung enough votes, it certainly was emblematic of the disdain with which the New Upper Class looks at mainstream Americans".
> Trump won, because he and project 2025 represent what conservative Christians want and because republican party want it. And people forever blaming anyone else are just enablers. This has nothing to do with what democrats do or signal. That is utterly irrelevant
That explains why people voted for Trump. That doesn't explain why people didn't vote for Harris.
> This is not about how economy is doing in reality. It is not about what democrats signal.
1. Republican voters either want to destroy the working class, or are detached from reality and believe the lies from Fox News.
2. Maybe it's not about what the Democrats signal. But let's pause for a second: what did the Democrats signal? What was the big message that the Harris campaign really wanted people to know?
> And working class economical concerns are not addressed by republicans at all ...
What do you mean? Trump said grocery prices would drop on day 1! He said he would end the Ukraine war on day 1! And the war in Gaza too! He said he would bring jobs back to America!
The Republicans absolutely addressed the economic concerns of the working class. Of course, it was all a lie, but it doesn't matter if your voters just believe anything you say.
> That explains why people voted for Trump. That doesn't explain why people didn't vote for Harris.
Harris does not provide what project 2025 calls for. She would not own the libs either.
> what did the Democrats signal? What was the big message that the Harris campaign really wanted people to know?
They run on "we will govern responsibly" and "we can make economy good". They were not talking about DEI, women in general nor about minorities as OP suggests.
> The Republicans absolutely addressed the economic concerns of the working class.
And all those concerns stopped mattering the day after - both to the voters and to the party too. Previous republicans governments, including Trumps one did not made economy great, did not made healthcare cheaper, none of that. These are pretend concerns. Something republican votes can pretend they care about when democrats are in power. Something that does not matter when republicans are in power. Something they will call "bad" during democrat governments regardless of how things really are and something they never blame republican government for.
You can add debt to it too. Deficit matters only when democrats are in power. It does not matter when republicans are in power.
It is and never was about any of that. It is primary about identity and secondary about cultural war. Economy and everything else is far far behind these.
---------------
Pretending this is about economy, pretending that trying to make these voters life better would get you vote is how democrats are loosing. Even when they succeed, those voters punish them, because it was never ever about that.
> Harris does not provide what project 2025 calls for. She would not own the libs either.
So we should vote for Harris because she isn't Trump? What's wrong with Trump though? We already had him for 4 years, and the country didn't explode. Trump also has nothing to do with Project 2025, he said so himself.
> They run on "we will govern responsibly" and "we can make economy good".
Right, but how will the Dems "make the economy good"? Look at California, people are fleeing in droves, crime rate is through the roof, Dems are just as corrupt as everyone else! Trump is right, we need to be tough on crime and deport the people destroying our country.
> Previous republicans governments, including Trumps one did not made economy great, did not made healthcare cheaper, none of that.
Again, it's not like the Democrats really did all that great either. I never really saw them push for universal healthcare. Student loan forgiveness was cool, but just a way to saddle the country with more debt without solving the real problem (and Trump rolled it back anyways).
---------------
Ok, I don't actually believe these things anymore. But the problem is: I did believe some of these things before the election. I apologize for my stupidity, though at least I can say I was not directly responsible since while I live in the US, I don't have voting rights.
> Right, but how will the Dems "make the economy good"? Look at California
The fourth largest economy in the world—is that what you want us to look at and then ask how the Democrats will make the economy good? Gee, I wonder where they'd find an answer for that stumper.
True, but I wrote it off as the work of the tech bros, and I didn't see how that could be replicated in other states (e.g. New York's economy didn't grow at the same rate).
It's not the politicians' jobs to start the companies, it's their job to create an environment that companies can start and thrive in. I don't think you could argue that it didn't happen in California.
But you can ask if it happened because of California's political environment, or despite it. Could a version of California with high speed rail, more public transportation, ample housing, less corrupt politicians, no homeless problem, an encouraging business environment be more or less prosperous than the California we have today?
> But you can ask if it happened because of California's political environment, or despite it.
You can ask that, and it's a good question, but it's a much harder case to make in a political ad. "Sure, the Californian economy is enormous, but it would have been bigger if someone else was in charge!" isn't an easy case to make.
You're right, that doesn't fit into a convenient soundbyte, but I will mention that San Francisco's current mayor was elected partially on the back of a tough on homeless(ness) stance.
By mcphage 2025-05-253:13 > partially on the back of a tough on homeless(ness) stance
And that’s a much easier message than using California to say Democrats are bad for the economy.
By ashoeafoot 2025-05-248:25 california is 2 rich guys , it could have been 3. People voted for trump, because he is incompetent enough to bring the machine that is openly working against them to an end. They do not want a life support for the monster that eats them.
By nulld3v 2025-05-2315:42 Yup, agreed. My earlier reply was my previous uninformed opinion and I no longer hold that opinion strongly. Though I also don't hold any other strong opinions on current California governance as I haven't been paying close attention and I've previously been fooled by some of the media messaging about high crime rates.
Another issue that I've been trying to understand are the delays and budget overruns in the high-speed rail project. Some people argue it was NIMBYs but isn't governance responsible for making sure NIMBYs don't become a major problem? My current understanding is that it was partially due to valid safety & environmental concerns, and partially the project looked simple but turned out to involve very complicated/hard engineering work. It's just very difficult to sell people on this argument... Glad to hear any insights, or links/books.
Trump is literally making the project 2025 happen. It was no secret before election and it was no secret he is going to do it. Amd people saying so were very literally correct and right.
Second, no. Republicans are massively more corrupt. Trump himself went from a guy who had debts to a rich guy due to his first term corruption. The goverment and its positions are quite literally openly on sale right now.
Trump and republicans are not tough on crime, they are heavily involved in crime. They are also ok woth cops breaking the law which makes crimes worst. And makes cops into criminals. Oh, and they are against law enforcement in taxes and such.
Democrats actually did much better then republican on healthcare while repuocans systematically opposed it. Every single time.
I don't know where you mean to go with California, listens fox too much?
By nulld3v 2025-05-2320:07 The reason I didn't believe Project 2025 would happen was because Trump was much more moderate during his first term. I foolishly ignored all the signs that Trump was actually an unhinged madman and that the country only survived because his administration reigned him in.
So yes, I know the Republicans are massively more corrupt. But the Dems contributed to normalizing corruption in government. When you point at obvious corruption in the Republican party, and then they respond by pointing out obvious corruption in the Democratic party, and then you resort to saying stuff like: "sure we have corruption, just less of it and you have more of it", you have lost.
You mention police corruption: what happened to "defund the police"? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democrats-wen...
Universal healthcare: if it was such a partisan issue, then the problem would be easy to fix, no? Dems pass universal healthcare in blue states. Republicans see how good it is and get jealous. So why isn't it happening?
> I don't know where you mean to go with California, listens fox too much?
Prop 47 was dragged through the mud on basically every major new outlet (although TBF, nearly every major new outlet is right-leaning). Same for the homeowner's insurance market.
By mandmandam 2025-05-238:532 reply > those in control of the Democratic Party underestimated the anger and economic desperation of the working class.
They don't care. Why would they?
The worse Republicans act, the more Democrat leaders are happy to present themselves as the only 'sane' alternative.
That 'sanity' now includes arming genocide, campaigning with Dick Cheney, removing being 'anti-torture' from their platforms, etc. Very little media holds them to account on any of this.
The people who fund (read: own) the Democrats and the media are a higher priority to politicians than their actual voter base. That has been made abundantly clear to anyone paying attention: just look at Gaza, healthcare, environmental protection, fracking, or any number of issues where the majority of Americans want progress while <5% of Dem politicians actually fight for them.
Again, Gaza made this wildly clear: Even though 77% of Dem voters wanted an arms embargo, and >30% of 2020 Biden voters in swing states were loudly saying that arming genocide was probably a red line as far as getting their vote, Harris decided that bombing children was more important than winning the election. And the rest of the party leadership supported this, again, against the will of the vast majority of their voters.
By watwut 2025-05-239:50 I do not see Republicans slowing down what is going on in Gaza ... instead it is becoming more violent and unrestricted. Like common ... if democrats said anything against israel politics, they would be called anti-semitic, would be hit by easy campaign and would lose more votes.
There are actual big differences in terms of how those two parties behaves. Saying anything else is just lie.
Supposed economic desperation vote rejected economy that was doing good. They do not want better cheaper healthcare nor functioning economy. They want republican program, they just hoped it will be only other people who will be harmed.
Between Trump and Harris, Trump was obviously a much worse choice for Gaza. Anyone equivocating the distinction between them doesn't care about Gaza at all and is functioning entirely within the realm of performative activism.
By nulld3v 2025-05-2312:44 https://www.columnblog.com/p/if-harris-opposes-trumps-horrif...
> ### If Harris Opposes Trump’s Horrific Gaza Policies, She Should Say So
> Her defenders insist she would have been “better on Gaza.” This is very possible. But why doesn’t she explain how in her own words?
I'm still waiting.
By mandmandam 2025-05-2313:183 reply There is nothing 'performative' about refusing to vote for a candidate who promises to arm a genocidal regime currently doing a live-streamed holocaust. That's just your basic bare-minimum moral and legal duty as a human.
The fact that such an assertion is a tolerated talking point in US society is absolutely damning.
By Cipater 2025-05-2613:52 What about voting for a candidate that says America should let Israel "finish the job" while campaigning?
By root_axis 2025-05-2314:56 Israel was going to be armed either way, this is decades long u.s. policy and nobody was going to change that.
The choice was between a liberal candidate that's at least nominally interested in good outcomes for Gaza and a candidate that's openly hostile to Gaza, the same candidate that recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and enacted a total ban on Muslim immigrants in the u.s.
Now, Trump is openly proposing ethnic cleansing so he can build hotels in Gaza. People who equivocate on lesser-of-two-evils are those who simply don't care about real outcomes.
By chipsrafferty 2025-05-2316:58 But Trump promised that too.
By kristopolous 2025-05-234:54 [flagged]
By platevoltage 2025-05-234:02 Luckily Jon Stewart finally came to his senses.
By eli_gottlieb 2025-05-234:143 reply I tolerate my normie family saying it, but it grates on me because of how many of the constituencies have switched sides by now. For instance, educated professionals were a major base for the original Nazi Party, while nowadays the fascists seem to really loathe that class stratum.
By mrbigbob 2025-05-2313:50 "For instance, educated professionals were a major base for the original Nazi Party." Thats not entirely true. While there were definitely many people in education who supported the nazi party there were still quite a few in the education field during the beginning of Hitlers power who were not and many fled to other countries starting around 1933. https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/Online/5299/The-scientific.... it was why albert einstein spent a great deal of time in the US.
Through laws they shaped and molded the education to be inline with nazi ideology and only those who towed the line were allowed to continue to teach/study. heres a small article from the US Congress (shocked its still up) that discusses higher education in germany during nazi occupation. https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/116973/documents/...
Basically if you disagreed with the nazi party you were fired/expelled in the beginning and later sent to camps. the entire point of studying history is so we dont repeat it and just looking at the amount of US universities bending to the republican parties ideals on what they believe is scarily similar to early nazi germany.
I dont get how people dont understand that the strength of the US for the longest time has been our diversity; especially in education. hell, after world war 2 we actively recurited many nazi scientist to help us with the space program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip many would argue it is the reason why we beat the soviet union to the moon. the harm that is slowly being done to this country will take decades to repair if it can be and i dont believe that is being hyperbolic
By victorbjorklund 2025-05-2313:54 Not really. The nazis party had the same rethoric. Of course they recruited business leaders etc despite that. Just like people like Elon are part of the MAGA movement.
By computerthings 2025-05-2310:11 [dead]
By spacemadness 2025-05-2315:291 reply Do you know how condescending and useless that statement is?
It is only useless on mindless elitist mind. Why would it be condescending to remind people actions have consequences?
By const_cast 2025-05-263:36 > Why would it be condescending to remind people actions have consequences?
I think yes, explicitly. I think every person on planet Earth is aware actions have consequences. That's never been a debate. The debate is always what consequences have come from what actions, and to what extent.
By spacemadness 2025-05-2417:341 reply Yeah ok. It seems you have nothing to add except some lame nonsensical jabs at “elitists.”
By nec4b 2025-05-2418:33 You are free to expand on why you think it's condescending, since you brought it up.
By anonfordays 2025-05-240:271 reply [flagged]
By anonfordays 2025-05-2411:361 reply [flagged]
That's not what they were saying 4 years ago, but okay lol, I see you can't say anything else.
By anonfordays 2025-06-0217:01 That's what they were saying 4 years ago, but okay lol, I see you can't say anything else.
By tomhow 2025-05-263:32 Please don't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. In discussions like this we need everyone to pay extra attention to the guidelines, particularly these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
Yeah, and my grandmother lived under Nazi Germany, although she was a supporter and not put in any camps. Call me an elitist all you want, I don't care.
I'd be fine with banning political discussion altogether on this site, but until that happens, I'm not going to self-censor as others confidently let their opinions be known.
By tomhow 2025-05-263:27 Banning political discussion was briefly tried here, nearly a decade ago. It failed, but it did reveal (or, remind) that there's no way to get a community like HN to agree on where the line should be between "politics" and "everything else", and that indeed that very question is itself political. So, there will be no more attempts to ban political discussion here. There will just be continued emphasis on the guideline that only stories that contain "significant new information" are considered worthy of discussion on HN.
But we do ask you and everyone to heed the guidelines, particularly these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
By 0x5f3759df-i 2025-05-2222:511 reply They’d probably try to be more subtle about it.
Whence the salient and more pressing question: why does the gop in the legislative branch take a zero?
We've all had bad bosses ... and that's a problem, but it's 10x worse when the people around know better and do nothing.
By paulryanrogers 2025-05-230:051 reply They're afraid of losing to a primary challenger if they break with Trump. It used to be a Trump endorsement would hurt your campaign. Now a Trump critique is believed to be a scarlet letter. He's got a lock on the racist zealots that make up the most consistent voting bloc in the GOP.
By tbihl 2025-05-232:41 They never picked off Newhouse, IIRC.
I think the problem is that half of the country (has been made to) wants to sabotage itself. Therefore, they elect and keep in power someone that gives them exactly what they want.
Yeah, the way the Democratic Party self-destructed was indeed enlightening and frightening. And they continue to point fingers at each other and present specious arguments why they failed in the last election.
Meamwhile the Republicans, while making headway, aren't doing it in a way that will last beyond the next Democratic administration. I'm speaking of the overuse of executive orders when legislation is what is required.
By nebula8804 2025-05-239:39 DOGE has destroyed institutions that will likely not recover in the next Democratic majority term. If they sell off the federal lands or damage them with resource extraction, Dems probably wont have the bandwidth to fix that either. Those are just two examples but there are probably many more.
By ttctciyf 2025-05-236:45 > seriously, if a malicious saboteur was running things, what would the differences be?
Less obvious corruption.
By moralestapia 2025-05-238:201 reply Harvard does not have "the best and brightest" students and that's a meme that needs to die as is discriminatory to literally all the other students in the US and the planet.
By nebula8804 2025-05-239:412 reply You are nitpicking. It is an elite institution that still attracts elite class people or else it wouldn't be worth so much to so many groups. There are hundreds of universities in the US, many of which have no kind recognition of the kind Harvard has.
By zelphirkalt 2025-05-2314:301 reply One could also call it a bubble. Last as long as it lasts, which is as long as the stakeholders believe in it.
I think your argument doesn't hold. Just because people still believe something to be the case, doesn't mean it really is the case. It being "worth so much to so many groups" just means they believe in it being worth as much. A well formed argument would come up with examples of the brightest hailing from Harvard and perhaps statistics about achievements of former Harvard students.
By nebula8804 2025-05-242:33 Only if you look at one aspect of the school: A bubble wouldn't produce a cadre of skilled people that move multiple fields forward. The elite nature of the institution comes from people maintaining that elite status through accomplishment. You don't need a "belief" when the school continually produces many examples of excellence. Thats just hard evidence.
By moralestapia 2025-05-2315:031 reply >You are nitpicking.
I am doing the opposite, @kristopolous is the one who attached the "best and brightest" label to Harvard students. I am arguing that's unfair.
By genewitch 2025-05-2315:45 I think it may have been an [un]intentional callback to Trump saying that about who "Mexico was sending over the border" - at least that's how I interpreted it.
Harvard doesn't have higher academic standards for foreign students. So I don't think foreign students are any "better or brighter" than their American counterparts.
So if you can find equally qualified American students on the margin shouldn't you do so? I think an American university that benefits greatly from American taxpayers and institutions should primarily benefit American students. If you're picking truly exceptional student, that's one thing. But I don't think that's happening.
Academic standards are kind of irrelevant when it comes to Harvard undergraduate admissions.
Harvard is a tiny university at the absolute top of the prestige hierarchy. As far as they are concerned, every serious (non-legacy/donor) applicant is a truly exceptional student. At least to the extent it can be determined from the admission materials and a short interview. They could choose randomly from all good enough applicants with no noticeable impact on academic standards.
But Harvard is not in the business of educating the most deserving. Instead, they want to educate the ones who will be successful and influential in the future, and to give them the best networking opportunities possible. The standard joke is that if the admissions officer knew that the applicant would become a tenured professor at Harvard, they would reject the applicant for the lack of success. Most Harvard graduates fail to reach that standard, but it's better to choose a likely failure (and an unlikely unicorn) over a certain failure.
PhD admissions are another story. At that stage, Harvard starts caring a lot more about academic potential. They don't want to restrict their recruitment to the US, because Americans are only a small fraction of the people with access to good education. Especially because Americans are reluctant to do a PhD due to the low pay effectively mandated by public research funders.
> As far as they are concerned, every serious (non-legacy/donor) applicant is a truly exceptional student.
I know it's fun to dunk on legacy admissions but legacy students are actually more qualified by objective measures than non legacy. It makes sense that some genetics that predisposes children to an academic environment gets passed on. Not to mention the fact that their parents value education. This holds up even when you compare them against their non legacy peers in the same parental income bracket.
https://mleverything.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-legacy-adm...
By ckemere 2025-05-232:03 I think in context “legacy” refers to the affirmative action boost given to children of (donating) alumni over better qualified unconnected peers.
I understand it's cool to slam Harvard these days but it is nonetheless a behemoth when it comes to research output.
https://www.harvard.edu/about/history/nobel-laureates/
https://www.nature.com/nature-index/research-leaders/2024/in...
https://hms.harvard.edu/about-hms/history-hms/timeline-disco...
https://www.harvard.edu/in-focus/innovation/
Roughly a third of the 50-something of Harvard's Nobel laureates were immigrants by the way.
By rurban 2025-05-2811:55 Their research output will fall, because they just revoked Francesca Gino's tenure. So far to their reputation on honesty and ethics.
By nebula8804 2025-05-239:461 reply Slam Harvard? Trump is slamming them because they are a known name that is resisting him.
Nobodies on Twitter are just that, nobodies that accomplished nothing in their lives. They have nothing better to do than slam a university that they have no chance of getting even close to yet they feel entitled to dictate how it should run.
Who else is slamming them? I'd imagine techies are humble enough to understand that the school is not some hillbilly institution in the middle of nowhere.
> Who else is slamming them
Many of Trump’s supporters and conservatives generally. Harvard is the beating heart of liberal theology, and going to the Supreme Court to defend racialism has earned it plenty of enemies.
By nebula8804 2025-05-242:301 reply Again like I said:
>Nobodies on Twitter are just that, nobodies that accomplished nothing in their lives. They have nothing better to do than slam a university that they have no chance of getting even close to yet they feel entitled to dictate how it should run.
Most of the people granted "free speech" on post-Musk twitter are still the same losers. Thats why they have so much time to complain about something that they think they have a say in. There is nothing more important going on in their lives/communities.
Conservatives are the defacto minorities in a modern western country.
They don't set the culture: ex: people visiting the US go to NYC & LA not Nebraska and Alabama, movies are dictates by the new ideas coming out of liberal circles, all conservative movies need to be subsidized.
They don't develop the innovations that keep the country ahead: ex: Texas, no matter how hard they try, is still second fiddle to SF and all these big companies they love to brag about (Tesla) started in CA.
They can hem and haw how much they hate that institutions like Harvard drag the country forward but in the end these whiners don't really have any long term lasting power because they are looking backwards, not forward.
Lets talk about a hypothetical: They actually manage to destroy Harvard. They are destroying the thing that gives them any say on the world stage. They may feel like they won but they will sink. The US is only 5% of the world population the rest of the world as much as they even care anymore about the US only look to their progressive institutions...not their backwater losers. Why would they?
By rayiner 2025-05-243:52 > Conservatives are the defacto minorities in a modern western country.
Conservatives are a minority in the U.S., but conservative-to-moderate populists are a majority. According to Vox, Trump would have won by almost 5 points if everyone had voted: https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-tok-young-voters-202.... And don’t forget that the populist faction of the Democratic Party doesn’t exactly love Harvard either, as the beating heart of borderless neoliberal elitism. A large chunk of the party is in it for the Obamacare.
Heck, the Democratic Party as it exists today would not be viable at the national level without first or second generation immigrants. It’s reliant on the people who have the shallowest roots in and least understanding of america, who can be most easily be manipulated through ethnic machine politics.
After the U.S. nearly banned immigration in the 1920s, the foreign born population slowly shrank, reaching a low of under 5% by 1970. Italians and Irish lost much of their separate ethnic identity and began voting as individuals free. Between 1972-1992, Republicans then won 4 presidential elections by landslides over 5 cycles. That’s what happens when the electorate comprises mostly assimilated americans.
But foreign students pay foreign money which helps against the deficit.
On top of that many students stay in the US afterwards means a brain plus for the US and a loss their home country. These kind of braun drain is a big advantage for the US they know destroy.
By ThunderSizzle 2025-05-231:021 reply If that was the case, then these funding cuts wouldn't have any effect on Harvard.
By croes 2025-05-234:50 If your expenses are based on your income and your income includes government money, cuts on these will have an impact.
Same is true for income from foreign student tuition fees.
By chipsrafferty 2025-05-2317:08 Notwithstanding the unfounded isolationist argument, having international students is valuable to the university and the domestic students. A diversity of life experiences, knowledge, backgrounds, etc. results in better educational outcomes. But you probably wouldn't understand that concept.
By kristopolous 2025-05-230:532 reply They don't have lower standards either.
I mean they will now with a candidate pool reduction of 96%...
The rest is kinda wild. I guess Ilya Sutskever should leave? Sergey Brin would have never started Google, Jony Ive would be in the UK, Jensen Huang and Nvidia would be hailing from Taipei, Elon Musk would be in Johannesburg, Linus Torvalds would still be in Finland, the Rasmussen brothers would have launched Google maps in the Netherlands, Satya Nadella would be in Hyderabad, the Broadcom CEO would be in Malaysia...
You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...
Not to mention say, the faculty of engineering at places like MIT https://www.eecs.mit.edu/role/faculty-cs/
To me places like Stanford and Caltech are world class schools that happen to be in the US. Over 90% not being American born is what I'd expect from a globally renown world class institution because that's what the world population looks like.
China has many programs to attract top global talent. If you want to fast track the transition from Silicon Valley to Beijing, kicking out the foreigners is an excellent move.
Graduate level coursework at Peking is already in English. All these scholars have to do is get on a plane.
By andrekandre 2025-05-233:461 reply
just a guess but i'd assume these decisions are being made on an emotional/ideological basis, not long term viability, but maybe i'm missing something obvious...> You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...By kristopolous 2025-05-233:55 Everyone's decisions are fundamentally ideological. Some ideologies are just more coherent
By eli_gottlieb 2025-05-235:081 reply > You're beheading like 50% of the S&P my friend...
And that's why we call it MAGA Maoism.
rather than say anything likely unconstructive myself in direct response to this, i would very much like to see you elaborate on your understanding of mao and what value and predictive power you find in this comparison.
By eli_gottlieb 2025-05-245:16 Maoism and Trumpism share a certain self-sabotaging ideological fetish for the virtues of rural life that expresses itself politically more in destructive resentment of urbanites and urban institutions than productive development of rural ones.
By Snow_Falls 2025-05-2314:331 reply [flagged]
By kristopolous 2025-05-2321:33 I've seen people use the USSR hammer and sickle for the O in GOP.
It's from people who think horseshoe theory has legs: that wanting to shut down prisons is the same as wanting to build concentration camps or that the people who want to say nationalize the banks are also the people who want to privatize the post office.
It's from centrists being unable to understand this difference
It doesn’t actually matter if the foreign students are better or not: by having a mixed student body, with lots of cultures and backgrounds, students learn more from each other. They learn skills to work with other cultures, and ways of doing things that may be better.
Of course, in America’s future of autarky and Shogunate-style isolationism, those skills will no longer have any value, even to the elite. There’s no need to learn about other countries if everything we need is produced here and no one could ever threaten us once America is made great again. (/s maybe?)
I don't know. A lot of foreign students from Harvard are Chinese. Seems kind of weird that they were found to discriminate against American Asians and then they import foreign Asian students. Goes against the whole we want diversity thing, no?
That sentence is breath taking.
> A lot of foreign students from Harvard are Chinese. Seems kind of weird that they were found to discriminate against American Asians and then they import foreign Asian students.
How do I put this delicately - the Race part is not what is bringing the difference in lived experience.
The university defines diversity broadly, encompassing race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic background, nationality, sexual orientation, and other aspects of identity.
Don't gaslight me and pretend they don't focus a lot on race when figuring out their student body. They report on it and it's a huge distinguishing characteristic when looking at median standardized scores across diff characteristics. There's little difference between socio economic groups, gender, nationality etc. But if you look across just Asian and non Asian students, the scores are dramatically higher with Asians meaning that they have higher standards. Courts found this to be true
Chinese people, are the same to you, as Americans if Asian descent.
That is what you conflated in your framing.
I agree. Then why are Asian students held to a higher standard?
Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard earned an average SAT score of 767 across all sections. Every section of the SAT has a maximum score of 800. By comparison, white admits earned an average score of 745 across all sections, Hispanic-American admits earned an average of 718, Native-American and Native-Hawaiian admits an average of 712, and African-American admits an average of 704
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/22/asian-american...
By lern_too_spel 2025-05-2315:53 What about non-American Chinese students? Those kids from Shanghai are no slouches at standardized tests.
A judge has already blocked the move.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/judge-blocks-tr...
> A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from terminating the legal statuses of international students at universities across the U.S.
By yandie 2025-05-2223:41 I don't think this decision can force the Department of State to issue new visas for Havard students unfortunately. At least existing students *might* be alright...
By semiquaver 2025-05-2220:201 reply This is not the same issue. Judges can be fast, but not that fast. Both the decision and this action against Harvard happened within an hour of eachother.
By dragonwriter 2025-05-2221:10 > This is not the same issue.
It is not, but it isn't unrelated; this is about the individual actions for which Harvard's refusal to assist by proactively supplying information is the basis for the action against Harvard.
By kristjansson 2025-05-2220:111 reply I believe they've taken a different tactic here - attacking Harvard's ability to enroll international students, not the students' status directly.
The article states "existing foreign students must transfer or lose their legal status"; this injunction would appear to pause that.
The semester is already over, many of them went home. They'll simply be refused when they try to come back.
That's a real issue. If you're on a student visa, and were planning on coming back in the fall, leaving the US for the summer may be a bad move. Entry to the US can be denied arbitrarily. Deporting someone is harder.
By benlivengood 2025-05-2222:071 reply > Deporting someone is harder.
It used to be harder and mostly seems to be a matter of ICE finding the right door to break down now.
By xethos 2025-05-231:13 They've got a deportation order, so somebody is being put on a plane to El Salvador. Whether the name of the person being deported matches the name on the deportation order is another question, but not one ICE seems bothered by anymore
By fullstop 2025-05-2317:59 You mean Tuttle, right? ;-)
By AlecSchueler 2025-05-239:51 Deporting someone is just a matter of grabbing them off the street and shipping them out to El Salvador before the courts hear anything about it.
By chairmansteve 2025-05-230:131 reply Not only refused, they may be locked up for a couple of weeks, as has happened to various tourists.
Sure, I was locked up by DHS/immigration, and I am a US citizen. CBP/ICE/HSI doesn't really need much of anything to lock you up, when they did it to me they told me I wasn't even under arrest.
By mandeepj 2025-05-232:21 > Sure, I was locked up by DHS/immigration, and I am a US citizen.
Can you expand - what happened?
IANAL but there are different categories like "detained" [reasonable suspicion, for questioning] and "arrested" [probable cause], and that's why the common advice is to just ask "am I free to go", which doesn't get bogged-down on finer-grained distinctions about why you might no be.
By ty6853 2025-05-233:43 Yes chained ("detained") in a jail cell, but not arrested, so no right to lawyer.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2220:49 It’s hard to do an injunction if there is currently no harm.
By gtirloni 2025-05-234:13 ICE begs to differ.
What judges say doesn't matter anymore to this administration. They'll just implement it anyway.
The house republicans have passed a bill that in effect lets Trump override the courts: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-hidden-provision-in-t...
By fluidcruft 2025-05-230:461 reply Presumably you mean it would if it were passed into law. The House passes all sorts of bullshit that dies in the Senate.
They don’t have 60 senators which is required to pass anything besides the budget these days thanks to the filibuster.
By ryan_j_naughton 2025-05-236:011 reply And thus it can only be used to pass legislation that impacts the federal budget according to the reconciliation rules. I don't see how the house putting in a provision that doesn't impact the budget but strips judges of a power could fly with the reconciliation rules. But I'm not a lawyer or legislative rules expert
By SauciestGNU 2025-05-2311:04 The Republicans already ignored the parliamentarian ruling they couldn't use reconciliation to prevent California from setting a combustion engine sunset date.
If Republicans believe they will never lose the Senate, they can easily bypass the filibuster without 60 votes. To date, the adults in the room prevented either party from doing this for short term wins, but a) there are no adults in the room and b) it’s arguable the Senate will never again have a non-Republican majority (demographically, not a conspiracy theory).
By mousethatroared 2025-05-2223:311 reply Nationwide injunctions are going the way of the dodo
By paulryanrogers 2025-05-2223:591 reply With population outgrowing our capped judiciary, making access to courts increasingly pay to play, this means even less accountability for the executive branch.
By mousethatroared 2025-05-232:27 The judiciary doesn't have to be capped. Thats on Congress
It doesn’t matter, the damage is done. If you’re an international student, are you going to risk an El Salvador gulag?
By thaumasiotes 2025-05-2220:554 reply [flagged]
Because they accidentally sent at least one person there already?
Who remains there, despite SCOTUS ordering his return? https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf
> Instead of hastening to correct its egregious error, the Government dismissed it as an “oversight.”
> The order properly requires the Government to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.
By klipt 2025-05-230:00 Much more than one: https://www.cato.org/blog/50-venezuelans-imprisoned-el-salva...
50+ Venezuelans Imprisoned in El Salvador Came to US Legally, Never Violated Immigration Law
By drivingmenuts 2025-05-231:21 That wasn’t an accident - it was a mistake, but there was nothing accidental about it.
By thaumasiotes 2025-05-2221:152 reply [flagged]
By dragonwriter 2025-05-2221:18 > They sent a Salvadoran who nobody cared about to El Salvador.
They sent a lot of people, mostly not Salvadoran, to El Salvador [0] without due process, the one Salvadoran just gets covered more in the news because, as well as the issues applicable to the others, he had a existing court order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador specifically.
[0] And they've done or attempted to do that to Libya, South Sudan, and other third countries to whom the deported have no connection, as well.
By ceejayoz 2025-05-2221:17 > International students are on the Meng Wanzhou end of things.
The vast majority of them (of which there are over a million) don't have a Wikipedia page, nor are they "Deputy chairwoman and CFO" of a company as big as Huawei.
Rumeysa Ozturk sat in jail for six weeks for writing an op-ed. I assure you, there are plenty of international students you can mistreat without causing a major diplomatic incident.
By klipt 2025-05-230:01 https://www.cato.org/blog/50-venezuelans-imprisoned-el-salva...
50+ Venezuelans Imprisoned in El Salvador Came to US Legally, Never Violated Immigration Law
By tremon 2025-05-2221:10 Why would you presume that risk is nonexistent? US residents with a better legal position than a student visa have already been sent there.
By animitronix 2025-05-2221:56 lol what rock have you been living under?
By platevoltage 2025-05-234:00 If people are being deported without a hearing, it literally doesn't matter. You or I can be deported if we don't get a chance to prove our status.
The government has already revoked student visas, the next step is deporting them to El Salvador.
By dragonwriter 2025-05-2221:14 Or Libya [0] or <random_third_country>.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/09/libya-deport...
[1] e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/20/trump-admini...
By cherryteastain 2025-05-2221:16 There were many recent instances of even long term US permanent residents being sent to immigration detention centers. Maybe El Salvador gulag is an exaggeration, but being sent to a squalid prison is a very real possibility. Here's one from yesterday [1]. What's preventing them from doing the same to a student?
Also, most people affected by this will not be the son/daughter of the president of a foreign country or a billionaire.
[1] https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-holder-detained-ice-immi...
By FooBarBizBazz 2025-05-2318:27 Why do students need to be inside the US in order for Harvard to issue them a degree? Surely there is an international network -- collaborators abroad who could host students, etc, etc. For example , Harvard already has an infrastructure of exchange programs. It's not ideal for the students, but I don't see why they can't continue to "be Harvard students" from anywhere.
Hopefully, though, this is an "escalate to deescalate" thing, and this whole discussion will become moot.
By instagib 2025-05-230:48 Or gain legal status another way. Marriage, business, lottery, another college, etc.
By achristmascarl 2025-05-2219:023 reply I wonder what avenues there are for Harvard to challenge this; it looks like the mechanism the Trump Admin used was for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cancel Harvard's Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification [0] which is managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) [1].
Does ICE just have full discretion over SEVP? Can they do this to any school for whatever reason they want?
[0] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/22/harvard-university-loses...
[1] https://www.dhs.gov/publication/dhsicepia-001-student-exchan...
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2220:575 reply Under 8 U.S.C. § 1372, the SEVIS (Student and Exchange Visitor Information System) program requires schools to report data on international students including what DHS has been asking for.
Harvard may argue that DHS’s request was overly broad, lacked due process, or sought information beyond what the law permits.
8 CFR § 214.3(g) and § 214.4(b), which require schools to maintain and furnish records “as required by the Service,” including disciplinary actions and other conduct relevant to maintaining status.
8 CFR § 214.3(l)(2)(iii) allows for withdrawal of certification if a school fails to “provide requested documentation” to DHS.
Not to mention other overly broad immigration laws
But given the laws on the books, DHS has broad authority to take this action.
Not arguing one way or the other just laying out the facts. This could have happened under the prior administration if the law was applied
The actual statute provides the categories of information schools must provide about their students. It’s not a “whatever we happen to ask for” list. See 8 U.S.C. § 1372. Needless to say, “protest activity” is not included.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2223:072 reply We do not know yet what Harvard did and did not respond to. All we have is their word. If they didn’t provide what was required after DHS demanded what was legally required to be provided then DHS is on solid legal ground. I can’t really defend not providing something that isn’t called out as part of the law though
No, we gave the SEVIS revocation letter demanding a handful of categories of information, one of which is “protest activity.” And they are already required under the statute to provide one category of information requested: “any disciplinary action taken by the institution against the alien as a result of the alien’s being convicted of a crime or, in the case of a participant in a designated exchange visitor program, any change in the alien’s participation as a result of the alien’s being convicted of a crime.”
My main point, though, was this: (1) the information required to maintain SEVIS program is statutorily defined, so the government doesn’t get to arbitrarily expand that and then punish a school for noncompliance; and (2) we know of at least one category requested information that they are not allowed to ask for and that implicates nothing other than the exercise of a student’s First Amendment rights.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-230:281 reply My point is we don’t know if they actually provided all the info that is statutorily required and/or the government is saying within those statutory rules you still didn’t provide it so by law it’s revoked (for now). We only have statements from both sides.
Seeing as it’s private most likely won’t see it via FOIA
Nah, this one is going to federal court for sure. It’ll all come out. But part of the rules are also that schools must provide the relevant information within 30 days of the start of an alien’s academic term. There’s a whole system set up to handle this. The system is not, government, go ask for this set of information whenever you feel like it and if the school doesn’t hop to it immediately, you may suspend. It says that if a school does not provide the information within the relevant period before the term starts, it shall be suspended. There is no discretionary wiggle room for the government to be like, well, I don’t think you’re giving me enough, or you’re not being cooperative enough.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-231:271 reply Actually, that interpretation isn’t quite correct. The 30-day reporting window you’re referring to applies to initial SEVIS data entry and student registration at the beginning of each term-things like confirming enrollment, course load, address, etc. That’s under 8 CFR § 214.3(g)(2) and (l)(2), which govern routine reporting timelines for active F-1/M-1 students.
But the April 16 DHS request to Harvard wasn't routine. It invoked 8 CFR § 214.3(g)(1), which covers ad hoc or investigative information requests by DHS. That section gives DHS broad power to request any time the records needed to assess a student’s compliance with immigration status.
Yes, I was being sloppy. Nevertheless, they can still only request that particular set of documents. And it’s not to assess a particular student’s status but the school’s compliance with the program requirements. (They can of course check individuals to make sure they’re also complying.) And just from the face of the letter to Harvard you can see they’re going way beyond the enumerated categories of information. Not to mention intermingling other SEVP-unrelated complaints (DEI! Antisemitism!) as to why Harvard is being targeted.
Our immigration system is so profoundly screwed up, and there is no doubt the executive agencies have wide powers to draw on, but they’re not even trying to provide a fig leaf of legality. It’s straight, “Comply or suffer!”
By firesteelrain 2025-05-232:49 yes, there are clear problems with the scope and political context of the request. But the legal framework does give DHS room to request information tied to student status compliance, even outside of term-start reporting. The question now is how much of that request was actually lawful, and how much was political theater cloaked in regulatory form.
Rights don’t exist if you’re not a citizen. Isn’t that the whole crux of the debate? Glossing over that part, and as a former lawyer you should know better, means everything.
You’re wrong about that. It doesn’t say “Congress shall make no law, unless it targets non-citizens.” The First Amendment is a constraint on what governments may do.
Wish I had a way to privately get your digits. We accidentally seem to be knocking heads, and I bet you’re a great person to grab a coffee with. East coast?
By dmvdoug 2025-05-232:21 Probably my now 70 hours of being awake, honestly, sorry if I’m being snippy. Deep South gang, rise up!
By Slava_Propanei 2025-05-2417:53 Governments may remove foreigners. Especially ones who come here to expand their internecine desert tribal rivalries that have no place in American communities.
By eli_gottlieb 2025-05-235:101 reply And all we have is DHS' word that Harvard didn't provide what was required. This is simply ridiculous and everything needs to be easier for the public to double-check so we can call bullshit in the right direction.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2310:042 reply Your bias is showing. Harvard could be wrong too.
This is all being argued in the court of public opinion now
By ImPostingOnHN 2025-05-2813:17 The bayesean priors aren't the same for the two parties: One is a 30-time convicted criminal infamous for lying to get his way (tens of thousands of such lies on the record); The other is not.
If your first instinct isn't that the infamous known liar isn't the one lying here, then the bias here is yours.
By malcolmgreaves 2025-05-2317:221 reply Why would you ever believe the orange criminal and his gang members?
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2414:331 reply He is not a criminal nor do we have gang members. Show some respect
By eli_gottlieb 2025-05-2416:541 reply He is a criminal. He is a convicted felon.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2421:02 Ah yes, the justice system only works when it favors your guy. But sure, 12 random jurors in New York just happened to all get their talking points from MSNBC. Totally not how trials work. Let us know how the appeal goes - third time's the charm, right?
I mean Biden was totally with it his entire term and didn’t have cancer either right?
By throwawaymaths 2025-05-2221:16 yep. the laws have been written to be broad... my best guess would be the best legal argument Harvard could claim would be that it construes the existing law as a bill of attainder (a law targetted at an individual or group of individuals called out by person -- versus called out by some category of actions -- that is judged without trial)
By JumpCrisscross 2025-05-233:191 reply Could Harvard be eligible for damages?
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2311:321 reply Given that Harvard’s own report supports this administration’s findings I am doubtful. Harvard’s own ASAIB report proved there is a prevalence of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias which includes verbal harassment, discriminatory comments hostile environments in academic settings pertaining to Israel and the Middle East, and exclusion of Jewish students from certain campus activities and organizations due to their perceived political affiliations
Link https://www.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/FINAL-Har...
By JumpCrisscross 2025-05-2314:071 reply Not sure how that’s relevant to pulling their foreign student credentials.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2314:201 reply Point is their only option is to seek injunctive relief
By JumpCrisscross 2025-05-2314:391 reply > their only option is to seek injunctive relief
…why? Why does an internal Harvard report obviate damages for an unrelated illegal executive action?
I’m not arguing they have that claim. I’m just fairly certain this report doesn’t have anything to do with it.
By firesteelrain 2025-05-2414:36 I will explain.
Under 8 CFR § 214.3(a)(3) and § 214.4(a)(2)(ii), schools are required to maintain accurate records and comply with all SEVP-related responsibilities, which include ensuring that F-1 students are not engaged in activities that violate status or federal law. If DHS believes that international students were involved in threatening, discriminatory, or unlawful activity and the school either failed to document, disclose, or respond appropriately, that’s a direct compliance issue.
Harvard’s own ASAIB report admits that antisemitic conduct occurred-including exclusion of Jewish students, verbal harassment, and bias in classroom settings. If any of that involved foreign students-and Harvard didn’t report it or take disciplinary action-DHS can reasonably infer noncompliance with 214.3(g)(1) (required records) and failure to enforce visa conditions.
In fact, the ASAIB report might be evidence that Harvard knew about the issues and didn’t fully cooperate, justifying DHS’s conclusion that the university wasn’t acting in good faith.
By selfselfgo 2025-05-2221:21 [dead]
By hackyhacky 2025-05-2221:17 [flagged]
By vharuck 2025-05-2313:25 They could argue it is an arbitrary or capricious action by the agency: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/706
If Harvard has maintained approval for international students, and Harvard's policies with respect to the approval haven't changed recently, then withdrawing approval would be arbitrary.
The actual letter explains they can regain status by ratting out their students.
It will quietly be done, although likely in a way that make it look as if Harvard hasn't.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Trump is not a mafia boss - time after time he showed that his words cannot be trusted. If Harvard makes a concession, there's no guarantee that Trump will "forgive" it.
Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.
By cozzyd 2025-05-2220:12 It's too bad Barron was too dumb to enroll at Harvard so his admission couldn't be rescinded
By nicoburns 2025-05-2220:16 As a sovereign nation, China is in a somewhat different position than Harvard which is subject to US law.
By jaybrendansmith 2025-05-232:021 reply Penn should support Harvard and publicly revoke Trump's degree. Bullies only understand force.
What force does that possibly employ?
When you revoke the degree of a sitting president, that costs him...?
By staticautomatic 2025-05-234:031 reply It costs him the only thing he cares about: his ego
I see two risks with your analysis. First, you generally underestimate a person if you try to distill his personality into one negative trait (or, for that matter, if you select a bunch of negative traits but assume no positive.)
Second, he's still the president, so I don't see what pull the Penn degree has vs. that.
By jaybrendansmith 2025-05-2516:32 Justice.
By thaumasiotes 2025-05-2221:101 reply > Trump is not a mafia boss - time after time he showed that his words cannot be trusted. If Harvard makes a concession, there's no guarantee that Trump will "forgive" it.
> Look how China is dealing with Trump. Trump announces tariffs, China returns Boeing planes, tariffs somehow comes down.
Doesn't this example make the opposite of your point?
By yongjik 2025-05-2221:49 The point I'm trying to make is: if Trump bullies you, and you make a concession, Trump will feel no obligations to pay you back and may bully you further. China played hardball (up to some degree - I'm sure there were backstage talks), and that apparently made Trump "respect" China more.
> The actual letter explains they can regain status by ratting out their students.
Trump's history has shown that if you cave into his demands, he doesn't leave you alone—instead he starts demanding even more, since he knows you'll fold.
By _aavaa_ 2025-05-2220:38 Classic schoolyard bully behavior.
By throwawaymaths 2025-05-2221:162 reply can you give an example?
By magicalist 2025-05-2221:591 reply > can you give an example?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/politics-elec...
By throwawaymaths 2025-05-2222:20 thanks!
By throwawaymaths 2025-05-232:441 reply i was hoping for an example out of this particular domain (because i cant think of one), but it'll do.
Apple just got warned if they don’t bring manufacturing to USA they will be hit by company specific tariffs after Tim Cook bent the knee twice with personal pleas to lower tariffs for a bit and million dollar personal donations.
By throwawaymaths 2025-05-2318:25 "million dollar personal donations" don't really address the underlying request though?
like I'm thinking trump saying "china needs to come to the table", so china comes to the table, and they get a 90 day stay on the 150% tariffs.
By Aeolun 2025-05-230:13 If you provide information to an actor when you have a clear indication that said actor will then take disproportionate action against the one on which you provide information, how is that not wrong?
By bilbo0s 2025-05-2222:16 Doesn't matter anyway.
Pretty much a guarantee that Harvard will choose to stay the course. This is the quintessential organization that thinks along the lines of, "100 years from now Harvard will still be Harvard. And Trump will be one of the answers on a middle school history exam".
Expect escalation.
By ty6853 2025-05-2222:25 Ratting out in my mind means informing authorities in a way that something negative might be expected to happen to the subject.
For instance, I don't think smoking weed is wrong, but if I go tell an officer you have weed in your car, I have ratted you out despite nothing 'wrong' happening.
