Why? He could very easily have answered he was a Mexican citizen, and left anything else blank. I’m not here to argue the immigration issue. I’m just here to point out that it’s Harvard’s business who they admit and who they give aid to, they are not an immigration enforcement agency. If the Congress wants to make some law requiring Universities to report irregularities on the Common Application to ICE, they can do so. I sort of doubt it’s going to happen.</p>
<p>And believe me, there are plenty of people who would complain about your international friends taking spaces at US universities, regardless of whether they could pay or not. Again, that is the business of a private university.</p>
<p>So he’d be checking the “Other citizenship” box, leaving the “Visa type” line blank, and writing in Mexico in the “List any non-US countries of citizenship” lines? Balderas is in the country illegally; he has no student visa! If it’s OK to just leave the “Visa type” blank, then jeez, why have student visas in the first place?</p>
<p>^^^
Sigh. The point of Visas is for the GOVERNMENT to enforce immigration. Not a private university.</p>
<p>What is your idea of the common application? Like this is some sort of governemnt required document that obligates a university to validate and consider everything on it? Harvard can do whatever they want. They can accept a student who only puts their name on the application if they like. Again, Harvard is a private university. They are not a public institution. And they are certainly not an immigration enforcment agency. Their recourse for any problems on the form is to deny admission. But that is up to them.</p>
<p>If you want to be irritated with somebody, be irritated with the public schools which educated him for years, or the agencies that are supposed to enforce immigration policy…</p>
<p>Harvard cannot do whatever it wants to do. Do you believe that a private university has no obligation to uphold U.S laws because it’s private? I hope not.</p>
<p>Before we continue any further discussion, I guess I should ask whether you respect immigration laws at all? You seem to have no problem with encouraging illegal aliens to hide their illegal status on applications.</p>
<p>Law please? Statute about Harvard’s responsibility here? Because if there is some strictly enforced requirement, exactly what recourse is the government pursuing against Harvard in this instance? </p>
<p>And it’s an absurd stretch to say I am encouraging him to do or not do anything. I’m merely talking about the university’s responsibility.</p>
<p>I’m not going to argue immigration here beyond this - for the sake of answering your question, yes, I agree he is illegal. I agree his mother broke immigration laws. THe question is what happens to him now. Since the entire notion of “legal” verses “illiegal” implies a legal system that decides such things - not bovertine, and not fabrizio. The fact that he has gone through an adjudicatory process, is still here and being allowed to continue his studies indicates to me that there is no imminent deportation, based on the outcome of a legal process. THat is the current state of what is “legal” in this case. If you don’t like it, fight it. File an appeal or something.</p>
<p>Harvard accepts federal funds. Because of that, there are a number of federal mandates that they must abide by. If they stopped taking federal funds, they can do what they want.</p>
<p>When laws are routinely and flagrantly disobeyed then all laws are diminished.</p>
<p>So the way you work is to avoid answering questions by either ignoring them or shifting the burden of proof onto the inquirer? In any case, ask tokenadult for more information, as he has [previously</a> wrote](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/927219-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-8-a.html#post1064853446]previously”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/927219-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-8-a.html#post1064853446) that “Many parents and students mistakenly believe that private colleges can do whatever they want when considering race as an admission factor. That is not a correct statement of the law. Indeed, a dictum in the Bakke case suggested that any practice illegal for state universities under the fourteenth amendment (the ground of decision in Bakke) would be equally illegal under federal civil rights statutes applicable to all colleges that receive federal funds (which are essentially all colleges in the United States, with exceedingly few exceptions).” Applying that to our discussion, hey, if you take federal money, you’re bound by federal laws. If you think that’s wrong, hey, you win because you shift the burden of proof onto others, not yourself. Give yourself a pat on the back.</p>
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<p>Is that why you ignored my student visa question? Is that why you claimed that all Balderas had to do was check “Other citizenship” and leave “Visa type” blank? Is that why you keep mistakenly arguing that private universities can do whatever they want because they’re private?</p>
<p>^^^Oh, why didn’t you tell me tokenadult wrote a post about the Bakke decision. That changes everything.</p>
<p>Of course universities are bound by federal laws. I am arguing there is no such federal law about this. </p>
<p>The reason I ask for the law is because these requirements you speak of are completely inconsistent with everything I hear and read. If you would give me some link or something to show that Harvard has this obligation I would certainly reconsider my opinion. However, in fact, most of what I read says that even public universities don’t have to check this stuff.</p>
<p>I’m not going to spend a day researching this stuff, but this is the first thing that came up on a google search-</p>
<p>I had a foreign student intern in my office from a European country. The university had to “sponsor” his visa . He was required to report within 24 hrs. of arriving to the international student office and when he decided not to return after a trip home, they were required to report that. In my experience, mos student visas are sponsored by the university which then, I assume, does have legal obligations to report whether the student actually attended, if they meet full-time status and whatever other things there might be. How do you get a student visa without specifying which school you are attending?</p>
I’m sure this is completely true, but it is not the case I am talking about. In this case, the student used the university in order to obtain an immigration document. So the university is accepting respoinsibility to verify that the student is attending. I’m sure somewhere some university official verified that the student was enrolled for some official government document. It’s completely different than just offering them admissions.</p>
<p>Once again, if somebody can show me a law that basically requires the university to act in some sort of law enforcement capacity, or directing universities to carefully review immigration status of applicants, I’d be very interested to see it. It may very well exist.</p>
<p>Something tells me people aren’t really reading my posts anyway. Otherwise, after I posted this:
<p>My disagreement with your explanation is that it encourages people to behave in a “don’t lie, just don’t tell the whole truth” fashion. If Balderas had done what you had said he could have “easily” done, would he have lied? Absolutely not. But did he tell the whole truth? No, he didn’t. Unlike a Mexican student who went through the proper channels, secured a student visa, and therefore has a “Visa type,” Balderas can’t write anything on the line because he doesn’t have a visa to begin with.</p>
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<p>I guess you’re a complex person, then, which can be a good thing. I personally don’t see a teabagger, for example, suggesting that it’s OK for Balderas to tell the truth, just not the whole truth.</p>
<p>Thanks for the links regarding certain colleges’ abilities to admit illegal students under the law. I guess I ought to write to my Congressman about that. Thanks again.</p>
<p>“Unlike a Mexican student who went through the proper channels, secured a student visa, and therefore has a “Visa type,” Balderas can’t write anything on the line because he doesn’t have a visa to begin with.”</p>
<p>And that’s clear from his answer, which is to leave the line blank. So I’m not clear what part of the truth he is supposed to be hiding. He is a Mexican citizen; he acknowledges that he doesn’t have a visa to be in the U.S.; Harvard decides to admit and enroll him anyway. They know exactly what they’re doing when they do this. No one is fooling Harvard with half-truths.</p>
<p>Trust me when I say Harvard has very good lawyers. If there were a law making Harvard’s federal funding contingent on expelling illegal immigrants, they’d be on the street tomorrow. There isn’t any such law. (Note that Harvard caved when Congress made its funding contingent on allowing military recruiters on campus at the law school.) It would complain, but it would obey the law and meet the conditions.</p>
<p>So they knowingly admit illegal aliens? Then what the hell is the point of having student visas? (bovertine never actually answered my question; he simply claimed that illegal aliens can ignore the “Visa type” line, which completely sidestepped my question.) If universities don’t give a crap about legal status, then student visas are useless, pointless, and serve only to create an imaginary sign of “I am a sucker” above the head of every legal, international student in this country.</p>
This irks me because it’s allowing one illegal Mexican immigrant the opportunity, because he wrangled the first step. What about all the other Mexican immigrants who are just as capable if given the same opportunity? And how does Harvard get the be the deciding ticket, and not our government?</p>
<p>How do you figure that Harvard is the deciding ticket? The government, in the end, is the one who will decide whether or not to deport Mr. Balderas. It has the final word. It can listen to others as to why Mr. Balderas should be allowed to stay. But in the end, it is the government who will decide.</p>
<p>This is so tiresome. I have answered your question about three times. The university has no responsibility under any law I know of to investigate or enforce student immigration status. Therefore, it is entirely up to the university whether they require the student to complete any information at all on thier immigration status, citizenship, or anything else. So yes, they can decide that it is okay fior Mr. Balderas to leave his entire form blank if he wants. And yes, if the government wants to pass such a law requiring them to check legal status, that is the prerogative of the Congress (and ultimately the Courts as I’m certain it will be challenged). </p>
<p>What do I think? Is that what is bothering you about my response? I do not think universities, merchants, private citizens or anyone else needs to be in the business of enforcing immigration laws. I think law enforcement agencies, state, local and federal, should enforce the laws as written. </p>
<p>The point of student visas is to give students overseas an opportunity to come here to study. I don’t think that’s hard to understand. And enforcement of student visas is the job of the government, not the university. The university is merely a witness to whether a student is attending or not. As far as I know, Mr. Balderas did not apply for a student visa.</p>
<p>One place where Harvard may have violated some statute is as an employer. Because I believe there are specific laws about this. If they offered Mr. Balderas a paying job without checking his status, that may be a violation of a law. But I’m not 100% sure about that, since I’m not a lawyer. Which is why I asked for somebody to tell me which law requires action by Harvard. Generally when I ask a question it is to educate myself on something, not to “sidestep” an issue on some stupid internet debate.</p>
<p>I’m done with this thread, it’s becoming a little annoying to me. So if I haven’t answered your question yet, you’ll have to PM me if you are so concerned about what I think. And feel free to PM me with that law requiring Harvard to check status, I actually am interested.</p>
<p>Don’t have an opinion here. Just wondering if private business is not allowed to hire illegal immigrants, why couldn’t private colleges be required not to enroll them? After all, they are nonprofit meaning gets “paid” by tax dollars if indirectly. Their endowments that funds the education would suffer greatly without non-profit status.</p>
<p>I suppose they could if congress passed such a law, but so far it hasn’t. There is a distinction at this point between a company’s employees and its customers. A car dealership, for example is required to ask its employees to provide dcoumentation of their legal ability to work under immigration law, but they are not currently required to ask for or get such documents from their customers. Anyone with the money is welcome to buy a car regardless of their immigration status. And should congress attempt to pass such a law, I’m pretty sure car dealers would object that they don’t want to be in the business of enforcing immigration law - that this is the responsibility of the federal government. In the case of a college the students are its customers.</p>