Student Union
Harvey Postpones First Week of College on Texas Coast
Flooding in Texas caused by Hurricane Harvey has forced several universities to evacuate their students or cancel classes in the first weeks of the new school year.
Colleges and universities in southeast Texas, where the storm has dumped more than 50 inches of rain, were set to welcome thousands of students — including international students — back to the coastal Houston and Galveston areas, as well as the inland cities of Corpus Christi and San Antonio.
“This continues to be a difficult and challenging time for us all,” said University of Houston President Renu Khator in a statement.
“Houston bayous have crossed their borders, water has entered homes and roads have become unfriendly,” said Khator.
The University of Houston, 50 miles north of the storm’s landfall along the Gulf of Mexico coast, has been severely impacted by high winds, rainfall and flooding.
Housing, food service overwhelmed
University housing and food services have been overwhelmed in the relief effort as the storm affected those on campus and in the surrounding area. The opening of classes has been postponed until September 4.
However, schools have opened their dining facilities during the storm at no charge. Kitchens have been operating 24 hours a day to accommodate incoming students who moved in before Harvey made landfall in the Houston area, according to the university’s webpage.
VOA speaks to University of Houston student
University of Houston "dining halls were open to all students whether you had a meal plan or not," student Sunny Gotewal told VOA. That included free food to those in the community who were displaced, he said.
Classes at Texas A&M’s coastal campus in Corpus Christi — nicknamed the “Island University” because it sits on a peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico — are postponed until at least September 5, officials said.
Most students had not arrived on campus when the storm hit, said university spokesperson Luisa Buttler, but eight students and three faculty members were evacuated to Laredo, about 150 miles to the west.
Rice University in Houston said it is not evacuating students despite heavy flooding, spokesperson B.J. Almond said.
“All of our students are safe,” he said.
University of Houston students have also stepped up to help with storm rescue efforts. Before the National Guard arrived, four students waded through floodwaters to aid elderly residents of Beall Village, a nearby community, reported The Cougar, a student newspaper.
Moved to higher ground
Hadley said he and three other students moved residents to a parking garage on a higher level of the residence.
“The first room that I saw had a lady in a wheelchair," Gotewal told VOA's Student Union. "Water was up to her knees and she couldn't move, and she was just sitting there."
The students helped whom they could, Gotewal said, but couldn't lift the motorized wheelchairs through the high water.
The National Guard arrived and removed other residents, Hadley said.
The University of Texas-Austin is also offering shelter to those affected by the hurricane, said Cindy Posey, UT’s director of internal and safety communication. “UT Austin is honored… to provide the space.”
Students at the University of Texas-San Antonio (UT-SA) have donated more than 50 units of blood in a drive arranged by the student health department. The South Texas Blood and Tissue Center, which is also holding a blood drive on UT-SA’s campus, said it had sent 350 units to the Houston and Gulf Coast area.
The university will host several other events in the coming weeks, including food and clothing drives.
Lorenzo Sanchez, director of UT-SA’s emergency management, said that he is thrilled with cooperation between the university and the San Antonio community.
“We want to make sure we’re doing our part in helping our neighbors in Houston,” Sanchez said.
All students, including international students, are eligible for assistance even if they are not permanent residents of the affected area, said Troy Christensen, external affairs officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Christensen said FEMA is coordinating with the Department of State to offer assistance to international students.
Save documentation
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) website urges international students to save documentation to prove their non-immigrant student status, including a passport, visa and I-20 form to provide documented proof of their immigration status. DHS also advises students to have emergency-preparation kits and monitor FEMA’s website.
International students whose visa status could be affected by Harvey must apply for an extension or change of status waiver, if needed, according to the U.S. Department of State’s website.
“Your safety is important to us as well as out commitment to the mission of education. … Please know that we are all in it together — as a family and as a community,” said Khator. “We hope to get back on our feet, help each other and help our community in its rebuilding efforts.”
Zach Rayment and Max Cotton contributed to this report.
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Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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