Welcoming policies for foreign exchange students and scholars have helped give us stature, brilliance, greatness. These policies have given us friends around the world.

I can't even. I just can't.

Which the departmental AAs were tasked with administering. A lot of money comes from the government, one way and another, and Uncle Sam would like to know it is being used as per agreement. If there's a grant from the Rockefellers, same thing -- accountability.

Now that is a whole different kettle of fish from sending federal agents to campuses to rip through the files and question individuals and demand their papers to prove they have a right to be there. That's just terrifying, and the mark of a totalitarian dictatorship.

There are rules attached to ensure no federal regulations are broken.

For example, if a grant says you can only use this much for funding salaries from this grant, if they want to pay more from their own university funds, they certainly are allowed to do that. I just don't see how it is any of their business HOW they decide to pay salaries to foreign students, as long as the funds are all accounted for used appropriately.

Graduate students, especially foreign ones, are a vulnerable group that are frequently abused and taken advantage of because they are not going to risk future academic careers by complaining.

The government has long been concerned that universities hire visa-holders for the purpose of paying the visa-holders less and depressing the salaries of citizens.

This is nothing new. In fact, on-site inspections have risen in the past 10-15 years. When I was in college in the 90s as an F-1 visa holder student, there was a site visit and inspection to make sure my university was in compliance. I was interviewed as I am sure other students in F status were interviewed.

The reason for the salary questions has to do with ensuring that foreign students who work in labs as research assistants or other similar positions are fairly compensated in relation to others doing the same task. Universities have been known to pay foreign research assistants less than their U.S. counterpart.

As much as I'd like to blame Trump for this, unfortunately I cannot.