>Look at the politics of this and where ICEs actions stand on the spectrum of immigration, foreign relations and COVID (and probably a couple other issues that I'm not thinking of) and it all makes sense.
The COVID angle seems to me to be a total fig-leaf for other aims, seeing as the administration didn't do much for public health wrt covid - no strictly enforced lockdowns, no leadership on calling out states opening up too early, and not showing the president wearing a face covering. Also lets be real, the average international student is far less likely to transmit the virus than your average face-covering conspiracy-theorist American. (Especially those from China or SK - places where there are already cultural norms formed around limiting spread of infectious diseases)
Let's call a spade a spade. This is an attempt to enforce extralegal policy limiting immigration to the US via reducing the number of people on student visas.
The administration's policy on COVID is that it wants everything open and open yesterday, virus be damned. This new ICE policy that punishes universities for not doing so and tailors the punishment to mostly exempt the areas that vote for him. The schools attracting foreigners tend to be in left leaning college towns or in left leaning cities. The smaller state universities and community colleges that are in redder voting areas aren't nearly as dependent on foreign labor because they don't have as big grad student programs.
You're right about where this falls on immigration.
FWIW, Stephen Miller, an immigration advisor, has, in the past suggested limiting issuing student visas to "hurt universities whose faculty and students had been critical of Trump" [0]. With this in mind, this motivation becomes more clear and this wouldn't be the first policy from this administration that does collateral damage to their base.
It's like the tax policy change a few years ago to reduce the mortgage interest deduction. This had a much bigger effect on expensive cities and suburbs which are more in Democratic-voting states (CA, NY, CT, NJ, MA, WA, MD, etc). The Republican party lost a few Representatives in those states but it was worth it to them to get the tax bill passed and stick it to the libs.
Look at any county by county map showing who voted for who in a presidential election in the last 20yr. The cities lean left. Where are the universities with graduate programs big enough to attract substantial foreign interest located? Mostly cities. So who gets hurt by this policy the most? Places (and people) who lean left.
Looking at the map of results from the 2016 election in Indiana (where I went to college), the state was solidly pro-Trump but you can easily spot the blue counties where IU Bloomington (Monroe) and Notre Dame (St Joseph) are located. The only other counties where Hillary won are Marion (Indianapolis) and Lake (basically a suburb of Chicago). Tippecanoe county (Purdue Univ) is pink and went for Trump with 49%.
This indicates that even in a "red state", the university towns with lots of international students are already voting left and hurting them with this policy probably wouldn't affect the outcome of the next election.
> This is an attempt to enforce extralegal policy limiting immigration to the US via reducing the number of people on student visas.
I suspect this a "heads I win/tails you lose" situation. If schools don't reopen to in-person classes, thousands of foreign kids get kicked out. If schools do open, then hey, the COVID thing can't be that bad since things are back to normal
The COVID angle seems to me to be a total fig-leaf for other aims, seeing as the administration didn't do much for public health wrt covid - no strictly enforced lockdowns, no leadership on calling out states opening up too early, and not showing the president wearing a face covering. Also lets be real, the average international student is far less likely to transmit the virus than your average face-covering conspiracy-theorist American. (Especially those from China or SK - places where there are already cultural norms formed around limiting spread of infectious diseases)
Let's call a spade a spade. This is an attempt to enforce extralegal policy limiting immigration to the US via reducing the number of people on student visas.