Universities as Borders: Contextualizing Student Mobility within Immigration and Border Control Debates

• In Event: Examining the effects of student learning and mobility

Proposal

Introduction

The current geopolitical context of the world is marked by a significant paradox. As nation-states and global cities become increasingly interconnected and interdependent, governments are solidifying physical borders and border security (Jones, 2012). The paradox of globalization and national borders has concrete implications for higher education regarding the global mobility of students and scholars. This paper makes three conceptual claims about postsecondary education, mobility, and immigration policy in the United States, providing supporting evidence in the form of previous literature and secondary documents. First, higher education institutions (HEIs) are an extension of the state apparatus for immigration and border control. Second, the state cedes immigration policy to HEIs by allowing them to decide who can enter and the conditions of their stay. Third, the state uses HEIs to extend border security policy by compelling HEIs to monitor student activity and whereabouts.

The State and Higher Education

Previous work that explicitly examines how higher education is utilized by the state focuses on three main state goals. First, higher education is used to enact economic political aims (Geiger & Sá, 2005; Kochenkova, Grimaldi, & Munari, 2016). Second, previous literature argued the state used universities for scientific goals (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 2000; Sá & Sabzalieva, 2018; Zhang, Patton, & Kenney, 2013). Finally, states use higher education to pursue military goals (Biswas, Kabir, & Rafi, 2018; Setter & Tishler, 2005).

Little work, however, attempts to explicitly conceptualize how states utilize postsecondary organizations to operationalize political aims related to immigration and the border security apparatus. Our argument and theoretical contribution to this literature is thus two-fold. The United States government simultaneously cedes immigration decision-making authority to HEIs, yet it compels the very same HEIs to act as extensions of the militarized border security apparatus, ensuring international students and scholars are never far from border security, though they may be spatially removed from the physical border.

The Education Migration Nexus

Student “F” visas account for the third largest share of non-immigrant visas currently in the United States (Department of State, 2017). In order to obtain a student visa, a prospective international student must demonstrate they have been accepted into an institution that has the right to enroll international students through a document known as an I-20 along with other information such as demonstrating ability to cover program costs and intentions to return home after completing study (Department of Homeland Security, 2018). The US government allows HE institutions discretionary authority over to whom they might submit an I-20; in essence, passing (at least part of) immigration decisions (who gets in) onto HEIs. The decision-making authority for entrance is thus in the hands of international admissions officers.

Universities and Border Control

The primary mechanism through which the state co-opts higher education within the border security apparatus is the Student Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS). SEVIS is an online program created and maintained by the Department of Homeland Security to track international students and scholars and to ensure students and scholars are maintaining visa status. Though SEVIS is based in Homeland Security, universities themselves are actually responsible for tracking the students and entering the data into SEVIS. This is done by collecting passports, the addresses of students, and monitoring when students leave and reenter the country, among other things.

Universities are also responsible for ensuring students are maintaining status in other ways rather than just movement. For example, universities must also verify international students and scholars are maintaining health insurance within the private health market.

University employees are thus responsible for enacting immigration policies such as SEVIS. International offices check visiting scholars into SEVIS, enter addresses, and grant permission to students to exit the country during their programs. This type of work is very similar to the type of work being conducted by customs officials at the border, the only substantial differences being spatial, in that the university officials are not located directly at the border or airport terminals, and the university officials are not employed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Theoretical Conceptualization: Universities as Extensions of Borders

Jones (2012) argued militarized borders and the larger border security apparatus were developed using rationales of the “Other”, attempting to protect the so-called civilized Homeland from the uncivilized Other. Jones argued an additional purpose of the border security apparatus is to reify state sovereignty in an increasingly globalized world to solidify abstract borders in physical space, clearly identifying the space in which sovereign laws are applicable.

SEVIS is part of this militarized surveillance based on racism and othering. It was created and instituted in the early 21st century amid unfounded fears that enemies of the state were infiltrating borders using student visas. International students and visiting scholars are tracked through their stay, extending border security and demanding compliance with visa regulations far beyond the actual physical border.

Universities, as the institutions responsible for implementing and operationalizing SEVIS, are in practice extensions of border security. A useful theoretical metaphor is that of defense contractors, in which the military pays private companies to enact military goals. In this metaphor, universities are “contracted”, though the more accurate term, in this case, may be coerced, by the Department of Homeland Security to enforce border policies and reify state sovereignty through constant surveillance.

Implications

This conceptual analysis of the United States’ leveraging of postsecondary organizations to enact political aims leads to further questions and opportunities for more theoretical work. Additional theories are needed in two distinct but related areas. First, literature on higher education policy should continue to theorize on the ways in which states utilize universities to enact political aims. Such conceptualizations can provide useful insights into political motivations and how universities are coerced or co-opted into operationalizing the motivations. Second, geopolitical contexts necessitate theories making sense of state, society, and higher education in a simultaneously globalized and bordered world. A final unanswered question is, being aware of the role of higher education in immigration and border control, how should universities reconsider their obligations to society and the state in a bordered and borderless world?

Authors

• Paul McNeel Garton, Michigan State University

• Adam Grimm, Michigan State University