Acknowledging that many businesses have trouble getting by without foreign workers — as the president himself has found at his golf resorts in Florida and other properties — the Trump administration on Monday said it would grant 15,000 additional visas for low-wage seasonal workers in the next few months for firms that demonstrate that they would suffer "irreparable harm" without them.
In an administration that has led the chant to "Hire American," it was a welcome sign that reality can trump sloganeering, at least in circumstances where lobbying — in this case from the hospitality and fisheries industries, among others — reaches a fever pitch. Simultaneously, however, the administration has been examining ways in which the U.S. can turn a much colder shoulder to the world, even if the consequences include "irreparable harm" not just for certain companies but also for the nation.
This includes proposals to reassess procedures for foreign students already studying in the U.S. and for visa-seekers who would visit, work or seek refuge here. Both proposals are impelled by fear, nativism and the use of national security as a pretext for indulging xenophobia.
Officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) want to impose new red tape on enrolled foreign students and the U.S. colleges and universities where they study by forcing them to reapply to remain in the U.S. every year. Given the scale of that undertaking — well over 1 million foreigners, an all-time high — that's a recipe for bureaucratic confusion and new annual fees whose combined effect would be to discourage students from coming to the U.S. and staying here.
That would sap the balance sheets of colleges and universities — which are alarmed by the proposal — and the country's vitality. Foreign students injected more than $35 billion into the U.S. economy in 2015, according to the nonprofit Institute of International Education. Without foreign students — especially from China and India, the two biggest sources — many universities would struggle "to conduct research, recruit and retain teaching talent," according to the National Foundation for American Policy.
The administration also is considering shifting consular and visa-issuing functions, along with some 12,000 employees and $3 billion in fee revenue, to DHS from the State Department. Such a move would make the U.S. an international outlier. It would herald an era in which foreign tourists, business travelers and others would be treated as security risks rather than as partners, allies and friends.
If the administration succeeds in turning America's back on a globalized world, the result will be weakness and diminished leadership. Foreign students and visitors can and will go elsewhere, including to America's rivals, which will be only too happy to reap the harvest of America's decline.
FROM AN EDITORIAL IN THE WASHINGTON POST
