All posts tagged Education

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN THE CROSSHAIRS FOR DEPORTATION

By Tazreena Sajjad, PhD

April 25, 2025

Image from Flicker
Image from Flicker

As of April 21, over 250 colleges and universities have identified more than 1,500 international students and recent graduates who have experienced a sudden change in their visa status. The exact number of students who have lost their F-1, J-1 visas, or their Optional Training (OPT) extension, however, is hard to track. Sometimes, the students are not immediately aware that their status has changed; universities are not informed if student visas have been revoked; and several universities have not been forthcoming about the exact number of students losing status. 

THE PATH TO A US DEGREE

International students are some of the most vetted communities in the United States. Their journeys to American colleges and universities are long, arduous, and expensive. In addition to the enormous pressure to be the “best and brightest” in their respective nations, particularly to qualify for financial aid and/or scholarship, compared to their American counterparts, international students have to jump through additional hoops to enter the US. This involves submission of the visa application form, institutional certification (the college or the university of acceptances needs to be approved by SEVP Immigration and Customs Enforcement); proof of admissions and of full-time enrollment as a student; evidence of English language proficiency (the TOEFL exam, that has its own charges); extensive family financial information and banking documents); application fee payment for the Student and Exchange Visa form (SEVIS); the DS-160; a valid passport; evidence of permanent home residency; and evidence of economic resources and any financial aid they may be receiving in order to secure an interview date that may take weeks or months to schedule. Getting to the interview may be complicated if the Embassy is in a different city or country. 

The interviews at the US embassy are relatively extensive procedures where vetting takes place in real-time. While USCIS officers are professionals, these interviews can be subjective – and acceptance and denial of an applicant may happen at the whims of an individual officer. Anecdotally, prospective students may be denied if they seem “suspicious,” assessed as “not likely to return to their home countries,” and even “for having family in the US.” Post 9/11, the US government has sub-contracted the visa application collection process to private security companies particularly in the Global South – this means that before the actual visa interview, prospective applicants have to submit all their paperwork to these companies – which involves another financial charge – before they are reviewed by USCIS officers.  

If one is fortunate to have passed the interview step, international students are granted two things: a paper form connected to SEVIS (which determines whether a student can legally remain in the US once inside the country, and which is administered by the Department of Homeland [DHS] and used by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to monitor a student’s immigration record and identify individuals who may be in violation of their status) and the US F-1 (or similar) visa, which controls entry into the country and is granted by the State Department. 

Once in the US, international students have to maintain their full-time student status, are not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week on campus, and cannot seek employment outside their respective campuses. 

INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN THE US

For decades, the United States has remained the top destination for higher education. Boasting its Ivy League, fantastic STEM programs, well-renowned research centers and faculty, funding opportunities, competitive liberal arts colleges, and well-established public universities, education from the US is assumed to set an individual up for success. US academic institutions also have a global reputation as spaces of freedom of expression, where critical thinking is encouraged, and debates with peers and professors are fundamental to learning. Many of the students who are driven to come to US universities are not only attracted by the promise of a world-class education, but also by the opportunity to critique and analyze power without government surveillance and in an environment assumedly free of fear and censure. While many students do return to their home countries upon graduation, others choose to remain to pursue their graduate degrees, use the OPT to gain professional skills, or seek sponsorship for H1-B visas to continue working in their fields of specialization. 

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE US?

Higher education has not only been an unrivalled form of US soft power, but for decades it has been a reliable source of enormous revenue. First, the US has been able to benefit significantly from the talent pipeline of highly educated graduates in both STEM, the social sciences, humanities, and the arts. According to 2024 International Institute of Education (IIE) data, 56% of international students across academic levels have pursued STEM fields of study; one in four (25%) have studied math and computer science, while nearly one in five (19%) have studied engineering – within this pool, those who choose and can stay in the US are poised to be part of the community that continue to drive research and innovation forward. In 2024, Scott Weinhold, the then Senior Bureau Official for the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs stated, “The ties formed between U.S. and international students today are the basis of relationships for future business and trade, science and innovation, and government relations.”

There are over 1.1 million international students from 217 countries and territories, who combinedly comprise 6% of the total US higher education population. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the education of international students has also been a reliable source of economic revenue, making it the country’s 10th-largest export. Last year, the economic contributions of international students totaled between $43.8  and over $50 billion – more than the value of U.S. telecommunications, computer, and information services exports combined. Their presence has also resulted in more than 378,175 jobs; i.e., for every three international students, one U.S. job was created. 

Economic activities of international students in community colleges alone measured at $2.0 billion, and supported more than 8,400 jobs. Last year, 12 states broke the $1 billion mark as a result of international students generating 57 percent of the total dollar contribution to the U.S. economy, with California, New York, Massachusetts, Texas, and Illinois being the largest recipients of the economic gains. Furthermore, international students enrolled in U.S. colleges’ English language programs contributed $371.3 million and supported 2,691 jobs.

WHO ARE BEING TARGETED?

For a number of years, the majority of the international students in the US came from China, followed closely by India. Other countries of origin of many international students include Mexico, the Philippines, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Korea, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Kenya, Italy, Spain, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ethiopia. In 2023-24, India became the country with the largest number of international students in the US, surpassing China with 331,602 students. 

Given the large numbers of Indian and Chinese students in the US, the majority of those whose visas are being revoked and SEVIS cancelled are impacting Indian (50%) and Chinese (14%) nationals. 

While not all universities have disclosed which nationals have been targeted, existing data shows that students from Bangladesh, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Korea, Colombia, Nepal, and Japan are also amongst the most impacted. 

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

The pattern of whose visas and/or SEVIS are being cancelled is telling, pointing to the strategy as being part of a broader concerted effort to curtail immigration from the Global South in the name of “national security.” This means at the broadest level, the loss of legal status needs to be contextualized within the drag-net of multiple initiatives currently at play: increasing surveillance on migrants, suspension of US refugee resettlement; ending of temporary protected status (TPS) for populations such as the Afghans and efforts to end it for Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Haitians; cancellation of legal status of migrants who entered through the CBPOne app; detention; and efforts at ending birthright citizenship, and “mass expulsions” which have also resulted in the deportation of “non-white” individuals like Kilmar Abrego Garcia and the detention of 20-year old US citizen Juan Carlos Lopez-Gomez. 

The attacks on international students in particular also need to be understood within the context of the ongoing attacks on higher education and academic freedoms.  

The Thorny Question of Palestine

Tufts PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, Columbia doctoral candidate Ranjani Srinivasan, and Cornell PhD student Momodou Taal, recently admitted to a PhD program Ohio State University Ahwar Sultan -all have one thing in common with legal permanent residents and Columbia students Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Yunseo Chung – they were either outspoken in writing and/or in student activism or, in the case of Ranjani, assumed to have a “pro-Palestinian” stance. Today, they are in detention and face the possibility of deportation (Rumeysa, Mahmoud, and Mohsen); have“self-deported” (Ranjani and Momodou under threat of ICE arrests); are in hiding from ICE (Yunseo); or have their visa revoked (Ahwar Sultan).  In detention is also University of Alabama PhD student Alireza Doroudi, who has been arrested for “national security reasons” without any specified charges and whose lawyers have argued he has never participated in anti-government protests and did not violate any laws.   

The politics around Palestine in the US and increasing silencing of academic freedom is at the heart of why international students and immigrants -mainly (although not only) from Muslim backgrounds – are being targeted with arrests, detentions, threats of deportation and possibly de-naturalization. Further evidence has been provided by the US administration itself. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked the authority to penalize noncitizens for speech under two separate provisions of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. Following Rümeysa’s chilling arrest, he further stated that the US was revoking visas to clamp down on pro-Palestinian students for writing op-eds,  participating in “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus,” adding: “We do it every day, every time I find one of these lunatics.” The US State Department has also ordered consular offices to significantly expand their screening processes for new student visa applicants and requests for visa renewals through comprehensive social media investigations and exclude people they deem to support “terrorism” or hold “hostile attitude towards US citizens or US culture, including government institutions or founding principles.”

Chinese Students: Pawns in US-China Relations

For several years, there has been rising concern in conservative and Republican quarters regarding the presence of Chinese students in US colleges and universities. While many Chinese students and students from Hong Kong themselves are subjected to surveillance and harassment by Chinese authorities, they have also increasingly become pawns as tensions between the US and China have grown. Under the first Trump administration, during the trade war in late 2018, China expelled three Wall Street Journal reporters for a racially insensitive headline: “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia” — a phrase that carries strong undertones of European colonial history in China. The US retaliated by limiting staff for five Chinese news organizations in the U.S, ending Hong Kong’s preferential trade status, and closing the Chinese Consulate in Houston, accusing it of espionage efforts. China then closed the American consulate in Chengdu. In 2018, then Senator Marco Rubio and FBI director Christopher Wray told a Senate panel that American academe is naïve about the intelligence and national security risks posed by Chinese students and scholars; Wray revisited these comments in 2022 regarding FBI investigations on the research connections between American universities and China. These accusations underlie the fact that Chinese students and scholars, particularly in the STEM field, have continued to come under scrutiny. In 2020, under the first Trump administration, more than 1,000 Chinese students had their visas revoked. 

In 2025, there is a bill in the US Congress called the Stop CCP VISAs Act, aimed at halting the issuance of student visas to Chinese nationals looking to study at U.S. universities or take part in exchange programs. Furthermore, on March 19,  the U.S. congressional committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sent a letter to Darryll Pines, President of the University of Maryland – College Park, requesting detailed information on Chinese students at the institution, citing that those enrolled in STEM programs, particularly in federally-funded research, constitute “national security risks.”

The Case of Minor Infractions

While Palestinian activism and tensions with China explain a significant number of visa revocations and SEVIS cancellations, many other international students are not aware of why they have suddenly lost their status. Emerging stories show that some of those who lost their status have had some type of minor infractions, where their fingerprints were taken by law enforcement during their residency in the US. Fingerprinting does not equate a criminal conviction and can be taken during arrests even if no charges are filed. In other words, any police detentions, non-arrest citations such as a traffic stop, fishing license violation, or other minor charges that were dismissed or dropped –none of which are deportable offenses – are now grounds for visa and/or SEVIS cancellations. 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has filed a lawsuit to block the Trump administration from carrying out large-scale arrests, detentions, and deportations of noncitizen students and faculty members who participate in protected First Amendment activities. More than 133 international students have also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration. Thus far, a federal judge in Atlanta has issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) to prevent international students from having their visas revoked for a few weeks.

IMPACT OF SEVIS AND VISA CANCELLATIONS

Visa revocations mean that international students and, in some instances, their families are facing a legal limbo marked by confusion, anxiety, and fear.  Losing status may mean, in some cases, that students are no longer able to continue with classes, graduate, or continue to work through the OPT program, which in turn translates immediately to a loss in income. Traditionally, the expiration of an exchange visitor visa does not mean a person is immediately considered to be in the country illegally. However, a number of students have received emails from DHS that they need to “self-deport” within seven days of their visa revocations or get arrested. The legality of such communications is still in question. Nonetheless, the fear of ICE arrests and detention is stalking many students, many of whom may not have the immediate means to purchase tickets to return to their countries of birth. Furthermore, being forced back to their countries of origin upon threat of deportation signals for many a bleak immediate future. In cases of PhD candidates such as Suguru Onda and Xiaotian Liu (whose visas were re-instated after their revocation), Ranjani Srinivasan, Momodou Taal and others who have been working for years on their research, SEVIS cancellations and visa revocations may mean they will not be able to receive their doctoral degrees. 

The US too will be impacted by this ongoing attack on international students. Not only are campuses being disrupted by the loss of students in the classroom, but the American economy and society will not be able to benefit from the current and future contributions of these students if they are forced to leave the country.

In recent years, higher education has become a more competitive market, where US dominance has increasingly been challenged. Facing the rising costs of a US degree, complex, time-consuming, and expensive visa application processes, increasing scrutiny, and the risk of being caught up in US geopolitical tensions, international students have started turning to other countries for higher education. In recent years, Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Sweden have been accepting international students in larger numbers. Outside of Europe, China now has several prestigious universities, including in STEM, that are attracting Chinese students as well as students from the rest of Asia and Africa. Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea now boast more affordable and rigorous university degrees, some of which also attract American students. In specialized fields such as medicine and engineering, India and Bangladesh are also attracting Asian and African students. 

WHAT CAN US UNIVERSITIES DO?

Universities have a responsibility to protect both academic freedom and their students, staff, and faculty, both of which are at the heart of higher education. In this moment of crisis, in addition to protecting under-represented minorities, DACA recipients, undocumented students, transgender students and members of the LGBTQ+ community, they have a responsibility to protect international students and students with permanent residency, those who have been outspoken on humanitarian issues, and protect all students’ right to freedom of expression. 

Universities should not release any records or personal data upon request unless the request is supported by a signed judicial warrant as required by law. They should make every effort to de-escalate a situation concerning a student where violence is not involved. Finally, given the level of uncertainty and anxiety facing international students and all other students with different citizenship status, it is incumbent on all faculty and higher ed community members to continue to respond to international students and vulnerable communities with the ethos of care and compassion as higher ed navigates these turbulent waters. 

As of April 25th, the Trump administration has restored thousands of student visas that have been terminated 

Tazreena Sajjad teaches at the School of International Service at American University and is a member of The Immigration Lab.

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by clalsstaff on April 30, 2025  •  Permalink
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Marginalizing Multilingualism: The Impact of Trump’s Order Establishing English as the Official Language of the United States

By Sophia Robinson

Stop sign “English Only”. Image from flicker

On March 1st, 2025, President Trump passed Executive Order 14224 making English the official language of the United States; this decision will undoubtedly have profound societal effects, further marginalizing migrant communities and diminishing multiculturalism in the U.S. By examining this order alongside a summary of “Immigrants Want to, and Do, Learn the Local Language,” Chapter Four of Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misconceptions by Ernesto Castañeda and Carina Cione, it is possible to see how this action will affect the lives of millions across the U.S.

This Executive Order revokes President Clinton’s 2000 policy requiring language assistance for non-English speakers. Executive Order 13166 (“Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency”) helped non-native speakers access essential services, including government documents, healthcare forms, and voting materials, and its absence could leave millions without access to these vital resources. The dynamics of language barriers are rooted in both historical and contemporary struggles faced by immigrants in the U.S, and Clinton’s 2000 policy was designed to ensure that non-English speakers could access government services without facing language-based discrimination. Trump’s order frames English as central to a cohesive American identity, which is inherently multifaceted and complex.

Supporters of this recent order argue that designating one language will improve the efficiency of government operations and promote national unity. However, this change can have serious consequences, especially for immigrant communities who rely on translated government materials for essential services. With over 68 million U.S. residents speaking a language other than English at home, Executive Order 14224 threatens to further marginalize a significant portion of the population both through limited required accessibility to government services and further reinforcement of misconceptions about migrants’ desire and ability to learn English.

As Castañeda and Cione’s book highlights, the challenges non-English speakers are far more complex than they appear. Many immigrants, especially those from Latin America, face significant social, economic, and legal barriers to learning English. Even with sufficient economic means, access to language education varies by region and available free time. Discrimination adds another layer of difficulty, with nearly half of Hispanic immigrants feeling judged for their English abilities. As a result of various obstacles, many are left isolated and unable to fully integrate into American society. A policy that systematically and socially upholds English as the only possible standard for success will only worsen these challenges.

Language assimilation is further complicated when considering the gendered challenges of language learning. Immigrant women, particularly in Latino communities, often face more difficulty learning English due to domestic pressures, cultural expectations, and fears of discrimination. This reinforces cycles of economic and social marginalization, as women are often left without the tools to access better opportunities. 

Language barriers can have serious consequences for mental and physical health, leading to stress, isolation, and even misdiagnosis in healthcare settings. It is vital to uphold and validate the multicultural realities of the U.S. in all spaces and having that upheld in government accessibility is a crucial part of inclusion. Lack of support for bilingualism and multicultural identity can lead second and third generation migrants to lose contact with their linguistic and cultural heritage, which has proven to be harmful to community health and well-being. The executive order’s reduction of language assistance programs will only worsen disparities and perpetuate negative perceptions of multilingualism in the U.S.

The implications of Executive Order 14224 are clear: it risks exacerbating the social and economic divides between English-speaking citizens and immigrants. While the goal of national unity is important, the needs of non-English speakers should not be overlooked. If the federal government reduces its support for language assistance, vulnerable immigrant populations will face even greater challenges in accessing essential services, deepening existing inequalities. Policymakers must consider the long-term impact of such decisions on social cohesion and the well-being of all citizens, regardless of language and background.

Sophia Robinson is a Research Assistant at the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies at American University 

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by clalsstaff on March 26, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 26, 2025

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Confucius Institutes: Building a Capacity for Business with China

By Madeline Elminowski*

Confucius Institute at the Universidade Federal do Ceará in Brazil/ Universidade Federal do Ceará/ Flickr/ Creative Commons License

China’s Confucius Institutes (CIs) in Latin America and the Caribbean form a cornerstone of its global public diplomacy efforts – with an increasingly clear emphasis on laying the groundwork for deeper business relations. As the U.S.-China rivalry has heated up, these educational and cultural promotion centers, which are partially financed by China’s Ministry of Education, have come under greater scrutiny in the United States, Canada, Australia, the UK, and elsewhere in Europe. Questions about Chinese propaganda and free speech have led to the closure of a growing number of CIs in those countries.

  • Since the first CI was established in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2006 in Mexico, the number has expanded to 44 in 21 countries, and Chinese government statements indicate plans to create more. According to Beijing media, more than one million students across the region have so far engaged with CIs. While concerns about the CIs’ operations have also been raised in these countries, debate has been more muted and at least so far has not led to the closure of any.

CIs worldwide feature curricula focused on teaching Mandarin and Chinese government-approved courses on Chinese civilization and history. In Latin America and the Caribbean, they aggressively tie these courses to training in Chinese business practices. In 2012, for example, a “Business Confucius Institute” was established at the Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in São Paulo, Brazil. Courses on China’s business lexicon, how to interact with Chinese business partners, and how to leverage business opportunities with Chinese companies are now common in other Confucius programs.

  • In welcome ceremonies for students, CIs highlight these themes, promote study-abroad programs and business courses, and present themselves as places to develop specific business skills directly transferrable to the job market. They often offer classes of varying lengths, up to eight weeks, to help students acquire the interpersonal skills and practical knowledge for business transactions with Chinese companies.
  • Language classes in the CI at Chile’s Universidad Santo Tomás, for example, are pitched as a way to become fluent in the language of Chile’s “main commercial partner.” The CI at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (one of 11 CIs in Brazil) offers a business-oriented program of study designed for employment for Chinese companies in Rio and for Brazilian national companies seeking to develop a Chinese partnership. CIs serve as channels for interested Chinese companies to recruit employees and interns from the region. The Universidade Estadual Paulista’s CI routinely posts job opportunities on its website. It also offers an annual job fair to connect Chinese companies located in Brazil with local Brazilians interested in working in China-Brazil business relations.

The CIs are increasingly functioning as conduits to promote Chinese business relations with the region, often incorporating events to discuss Chinese business projects and showcasing potential professional avenues of advancement for students.

  • China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was the main topic of a World Forum of Chinese Studies at the Universidad National La Plata in Argentina in 2018. Speakers from both Latin America and China discussed inclusion of Latin America in the BRI and its potential to generate opportunities for Chinese tourism in the region.

The Confucius Institutes are a major element of China’s long-term strategy for promoting trade and economic relations with countries across Latin America and the Caribbean. While the Biden Administration is now slowly rolling out its “Build Back Better” initiative, China’s expanding Belt and Road Initiative has momentum – 18 countries in the region have signed on to the BRI since 2017. CIs support this effort by helping to train a generation of Latin American professionals to work more closely with Chinese partners. The potential long-term implications for the United States of a Latin American workforce and business class better positioned to leverage attractive opportunities in and with China are clear.

November 11, 2021

*Madeline Elminowski is a master’s student in International Affairs, with a focus on Comparative and Regional Studies. This post reflects work carried out for a CLALS project on China’s Messaging in Latin America and the Caribbean, supported by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting with funding from the U.S. Department of State.

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by clalsstaff on November 11, 2021  •  Permalink
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Latin America: COVID-19 Challenges Higher Education

By Eric Hershberg, Alexandra Flinn-Palcic, and Christopher Kambhu*

Left: Classroom in Campinas, Brazil; Right: Universidad de las Américas, Puebla Library

Left: Classroom in Campinas, Brazil/ Wikimedia Commons/ Priscilla Micaroni/ Creative Commons License (modified) // Right: Universidad de las Américas, Puebla Library/ Wikimedia Commons/ Jose Alonso/ Creative Commons License (modified)

The COVID‑19 pandemic has worsened the challenges that Latin American universities already faced and could have a potentially catastrophic impact on higher education in the region.

  • Average gross enrollment doubled – from roughly one-fifth to two-fifths of the college-age population across the region – since the turn of the century, but budget constraints stemming from protracted economic stagnation have left institutions struggling to meet that growing demand. Annual GDP growth languished at 0.4 percent between 2014 and 2019, according to the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). That forced painful cuts at state universities, and private schools have grappled with the stagnant incomes of tuition-paying households.

Due to COVID‑19, ECLAC now projects a regionwide decline in GDP of more than 5 percent in 2020 and forecasts that 29 million people will fall into poverty and 16 million into extreme poverty. To gauge the impact on higher education in the region, last month CLALS surveyed officials at more than 50 Latin American universities. (Read the full report.) More than half are in Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro has already slashed public university budgets, but the survey results show substantial adverse impacts throughout the region as well as deep trepidation about future prospects. Highlights our survey revealed:

  • Nearly three-quarters of universities have transitioned to some degree of online instruction since closing campuses in March, but 90 percent of respondents said that some students, because of socio-economic and territorial disparities, are having difficulty accessing the internet. Half of survey respondents considered that their institutions were “well-prepared” or “somewhat prepared” to make the transition, but half deemed their institutions to have been inadequately prepared. Fewer than half of the institutions represented had taken steps to address students’ need for connectivity, and in some instances, particularly in public schools, this gap was a factor in the decision not to move instruction online.
  • Most respondents believe that on-site classes cannot resume for some time; only a third at private institutions and a fifth at public institutions (mostly in Brazil) anticipate offering courses on campus through August 2020. As for the remainder of 2020, respondents were divided evenly on the prospects for reopening their campuses.
  • Fully 84 percent of respondents predict a drop in undergraduate registration, with half estimating a 10 to 25 percent decline. Predictions are only slightly better at the graduate level. Roughly two-thirds of the institutions surveyed host some international students, and of those, 60 percent of respondents from public universities and 30 percent from private institutions predict enrollment to decline by more than 50 percent.

Our survey leaves little doubt that Latin American universities are facing their greatest crisis in decades. Continued expansion of higher education institutions – one-quarter of which have been created since the early 2000s – now appears implausible.

  • Declining enrollments portend severe reductions in revenue. Half of respondents report cuts during the current fiscal year, and only one in 10 anticipate stable financing next year – with most expecting cuts of 10 to 30 percent. Hiring freezes are already widespread, and salary cuts loom on the horizon.

The responses to our survey may actually underestimate the depth of the dislocation in store. To re-open their doors, institutions will have to make substantial, unanticipated investments to ensure the safety of students and staff – reconfiguring facilities and developing testing and isolation protocols that will be extraordinarily difficult to implement.

Students will need additional support as the pandemic affects their families, campuses, and communities. Nearly three-quarters of respondents to our survey regionwide, and 96 percent in Brazil, indicated that their institutions provide psychological support services for students. There was virtually unanimous agreement – 96 percent – that these needs will increase over the coming two years.

  • An estimated 700,000 people in Latin America and the Caribbean have contracted the virus so far, and more than 35,000 have perished. In most countries these numbers are rising rapidly. In an increasingly bleak landscape, there is reason for concern that Latin America’s university sector may prove to be yet another victim of COVID-19.

June 2, 2020

* Eric Hershberg is Director of the Center for Latin American & Latino Studies and Professor of Government at American University. Alexandra Flinn-Palcic and Christopher Kambhu are Program Coordinators at the Center. Read the full report.

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by clalsstaff on June 2, 2020  •  Permalink
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Honduras: Facing the Budget Challenges?

By ICEFI and CLALS*

Honduran Lempiras

Honduran Lempiras/ Alex Steffler/ Flickr/ Creative Commons

Honduras’ proposed budget for 2020 reduces support to the country’s most needy – while protecting the military and security agencies – and, particularly if the debate on priorities is not made more inclusive, risks exacerbating already high political tensions and chronic economic mismanagement. On the revenue side, the draft budget shows a drop in tax revenues from 18 percent of GDP in 2019 to 16.5 percent – which, ICEFI has found, is not justified by technical analysis of the circumstances. Government spending – excluding payment on the national debt but including transfers to funds and trusts – equaled 19.7 percent of GDP, compared to 21.5 percent in 2019. (ICEFI estimates that the average government spending in Central America in 2019 will be 18.5 percent.) This drop will affect most public entities, particularly in social spending.

  • Education faces deep cuts. The budget of the Secretariat of Education, for example, will drop from 4.85 percent of GDP in 2019 to 4.49 in 2020. Transfers to public universities are slated to be reduced 23.1 percent from 2019 levels, and scholarships are also on the chopping block – cut 27.5 percent for national and 37.5 percent for international scholarships.
  • Health spending in Honduras – the country with the highest poverty rates in Central America – will decline from 2.39 percent to 2.37 percent at a time that inflation is more than 4 percent. The budget for Infrastructure and Public Services will be hit hardest – cut from 0.82 percent of GDP to 0.40 percent. Capital expenditures or investment will decline 33.5 percent year on year, including 38.5 percent from machinery and equipment and 34.6 percent for construction.
  • One of the only government sectors seeing increases is in the military and security, according to ICEFI. The 2020 budget proposes a 39.6 percent increase from 2019 on military and security equipment.

At first glance, the budget would appear to produce a surplus in 2020 of about 0.4 percent of GDP, which is double that ICEFI estimates for 2019. But factoring in the transfer of resources to the funds and trusts – a more reliable way of tracking fiscal behavior – the deficit will actually be 1.5 percent of GDP. That’s lower than ICEFI’s estimate of the deficit this year (1.9 percent), but it is achieved at the expense of the wellbeing of a majority of the Honduran population.

If approved and implemented as proposed, the budget will set back several strategic goals that the Honduran government itself has set. The budget confirms the government’s desire to reduce the public deficit principally through cuts to social spending and some capital expenditures – even though the approach contravenes commitments made under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child and General Comment No. 19 (2016) on public budgeting for the promotion of children’s rights, which establishes that states should not deliberately adopt regressive measures that undermine child’s rights.

  • Although some provisions of the budget in principle could expand production of goods and services, they do not clearly point to either social inclusion, especially in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity. Budget allocations dedicated to attention to women are very low, equaling barely 0.19 percent of all spending. Neither does the budget focus on achieving any particular Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The transparency and inclusiveness of the budget debate in the Honduran Congress will be crucial to determining the longer-term impact of this budget on human rights and the provision of public goods and services to the most vulnerable Hondurans, including children, adolescents, and women. Executive and Congressional decisions on the budget will shift the country’s path toward prosperity and governance – or continue down a path of instability and tension. More breaks for those capable of paying taxes, while cutting essential services to those who cannot, will be a step in the wrong direction. At a minimum, Honduran leaders should demonstrate the benefits of such moves will outweigh the costs. The legitimacy and effectiveness of the Honduran budget will depend on a broad, inclusive, and honest debate.

November 26, 2019

* The Instituto Centroamericano de Estudios Fiscales conducts in-depth research and analysis on the region’s economies. This is the second in a series of summaries of its analyses on Central American countries.

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by clalsstaff on November 26, 2019  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on November 26, 2019

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Latin America: Research Can Drive Inclusion

By Judith Sutz and Rodrigo Arocena*

A woman points to a microscope while a man looks on.

Researchers from Uruguay’s Universidad de la República worked with partners from the World Health Organization on a project to prevent dengue fever in Salto, Uruguay. / PAHO / Flickr / Creative Commons

Research programs that address “invisible problems” in society – challenges that are generally overlooked – increase marginalized people’s inclusion far beyond solution of their immediate problems.  Problems lacking “agency” get little or no attention as competing demands for public funding crowd out resources for studying problems suffered by marginalized groups.  The solutions that arise from most research, moreover, are often too expensive and too elaborate for the less fortunate.

  • Many health problems denominated “neglected diseases” fall within what the World Health Organization calls “the 90/10 gap.” Some 90 percent of all the health research done around the world is devoted to the kind of health issues suffered by 10 percent of the world population, while the 90 percent get scant attention.

Money and political will are only part of the problem.  Research to identify a problem is in itself a challenge.  Our research indicates that some initial research is often all that is necessary to make an “invisible problem” explicit enough for policymakers to be forced to pay attention.

  • In Uruguay, a university research program in 2010 uncovered the link between rice workers’ health problems, including early death, and agrochemicals seeping into the water spread at plantations. The link was difficult to detect because their symptoms were all “normal” and had other common explanations, but an interdisciplinary team analyzed epidemiological data to confirm it, which prompted the Ministry of Public Health to take action.

A second challenge is developing new approaches to adapt existing solutions that work for the well off to sectors without resources.  Many times in the past, research stopped when a solution, albeit a costly one, was found – which has the consequence of excluding sectors of modest means.  But we know that new intellectual directions can break through even those technological barriers.

  • Once a vaccine was found for the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), a dangerous pathogen that causes meningitis and other life-threatening diseases in children under five, the threat disappeared from developed countries. But it remained dangerous elsewhere in the world due to the high cost of the vaccine.  Researchers at the University of Havana explored a new approach and designed a synthetic vaccine with a very low cost of production – which many scientists have hailed as an important success.  Argentinean scientists’ development of a probiotic yogurt – called Yogurito – has provided an affordable solution to provide lactobacilli that children need for digestive health.  These “frugal innovations” yield huge benefits.

An inclusive research agenda – promoted by universities and other thought leaders throughout Latin America – can transform knowledge into a tool for social inclusion if the knowledge produced and diffused in the innovation system is focused on the broadest possible segment of society.  A Copernican shift of research agendas worldwide is unlikely in the short term, but a commitment to human sustainable development will necessarily open spaces for broader agendas over time.  Democratization of access to higher education is one important driver in building “inclusive innovation systems.”  In both developed and underdeveloped societies, “developmental universities” can play a big role in solving problems and, importantly, enfranchising broader segments of the population.  Inequality in knowledge – forgetting people with forgotten problems – is a source of broader inequality the reversal of which will be of benefit to all.  Seeing victims of illness who lack the cures that wealthier citizens have as agents, rather than just as patients, is an important first step.

September 20, 2018

* Judith Sutz is Professor and Academic Coordinator of the University Research Council of the Universidad de la República, Uruguay, and Rodrigo Arocena was the University’s rector.  Their recent book is Developmental Universities in Inclusive Innovation Systems: Alternatives for Knowledge Democratization in the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

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by clalsstaff on September 20, 2018  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on September 20, 2018

https://aulablog.net/2018/09/20/latin-america-research-can-drive-inclusion/

Mexico’s Teachers Between a Rock and a Hard Place

By Christian Bracho*

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Members of Mexico’s Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación (CNTE) at a mass mobilization in 2013. / Eneas De Troya / Flickr / Creative Commons

Teachers in Oaxaca and other Mexican states are increasingly fearful and resentful of both their union and the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).  Since the 1970s, Mexico’s Coordinadora Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación (CNTE) has operated as a formalized dissident caucus within the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de Educación (SNTE), the national union that has been an essential part of state machinery since the 1940s and strongly aligned with the PRI.  CNTE rallied for many causes, such as union democratization, regional autonomy, and economic justice, and enjoyed the most popular support in the 1980s.  As they accumulated power in the 1990s in states like Oaxaca, CNTE leaders turned to neo-corporatist strategies to incentivize teachers’ participation in union mobilizations.  An extensive point system, for example, rewarded teachers for going to marches, camping out during strike periods, and attending rallies in Mexico City; teachers who failed to participate in a minimum amount of activities lost union privileges and benefits.  By 2005, Oaxaca’s union had split over its focus on politics rather than pedagogy.  Over the last ten years, dissident teachers have increasingly faced government pressure and violence.

  • In 2006, military police broke up a rebellion led by striking teachers in Oaxaca state, in which dozens of activists were killed. In 2013, the massive teacher strike against President Peña Nieto’s constitutional reforms – which would require states to implement national education policies – ended with the violent eviction of teachers from Mexico City’s zócalo.  In 2014, 43 student teachers in Guerrero state were massacred, and last year over a dozen protesters were killed in Nochixtlán, outside of Oaxaca’s capital city.

Although these incidents provide teachers’ unions considerable cause for continued mobilization, my research indicates that teachers in states like Oaxaca are less convinced that their ongoing struggles represent authentic political resistance.  Many say they are fulfilling syndical obligations – less a reflection of personal convictions – because attendance is recorded and assures payment.  Teachers tell me that they trust neither the government nor the union; they see government as an entrenched century-old political machine that has resurged with more impunity than ever, and the union – both nationally and regionally –as driven by special interests and cronyism.  Maestros feel they have little recourse but to fend for themselves and families.  They fear the violence that the government may visit upon them, but they also fear the public shaming they face if they criticize the union’s political tactics or support government reforms.

Education reform in Mexico is vital to improve the overall quality of teaching and learning – and to address the social and economic inequalities across the country.  Government action is essential to such efforts, but endemic corruption has stained the public’s image of national and state leaders, cultivating distrust of top-down policies.  The union is also essential to protecting teachers’ interests and challenging the hegemony of the national government, but its neo-corporatist strategies such as the point system delegitimize the activist banner waved by leaders in states like Oaxaca.  Especially with increasing symbolic and physical violence, teachers are in an impossible position, stuck between two forces they don’t trust and facing dire consequences if they challenge the authority of either the government or union.  Though dissident teachers are important to putting a check on government impunity and corruption, the union’s sustained mobilizations have negatively impacted their profession and student achievement.  While “the teacher fighting is also teaching” – a common refrain in Mexico – teachers must also be free to step away from the march and into the classroom.

March 16, 2017

* Christian Bracho teaches in the International Training and Education Program at American University’s School of Education.

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by clalsstaff on March 16, 2017  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on March 16, 2017

https://aulablog.net/2017/03/16/mexicos-teachers-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

Does Trade Incentivize Educational Achievement?

By Raymundo Miguel Campos Vázquez, Luis-Felipe López-Calva, and Nora Lustig*

Female student walking by building

A student walks around Preparatoria Vasconcelos Tecate. / Gabriel Flores Romero / Flickr / Creative Commons

Mexico’s experience with free trade has challenged one of the tenets of faith economists know well from reading early in their careers David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation: that “the pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole” and that “[trade] distributes labor most effectively and most economically.”  Under this principle, “wine shall be made in France and Portugal; corn shall be grown in America and Poland; and hardware and other goods shall be manufactured in England.”  Mexico reminds us that while these benefits exist in the abstract, there are trade-offs to be faced—that there are, potentially, social and individual costs induced by trade liberalization.

In a recently published paper entitled “Endogenous Skill Acquisition and Export Manufacturing in Mexico,” MIT economics professor David Atkin shows the ways in which individual people experience trade and how it affects their decision-making – sometimes in ways that may not necessarily be socially desirable.  It analyzes a time period (1986-2000) during which Mexico underwent major economic transformations, including a rapid process of trade liberalization after 1989 and the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994.  Analyzing data for more than 2,300 municipalities in the country, the paper tells us that young Mexicans at the time faced a very basic decision: to stay in school and continue studying or to drop out and look for a job (among the many being created in the export-oriented manufacturing sector), most of which did not require more than a high school education.  Atkin found that, on average, for every 25 new jobs created in the manufacturing sector, one student would drop out after 9th grade.  (The World Development Report 2008 on Agriculture for Development had raised the question about “missing” individuals in this age group, but in relation to migration.)

  • While trade brought positive effects including a higher demand for low skilled workers and an eventual increase in their wages – consistent with David Ricardo’s basic notion – Atkin concluded that in Mexico it had the socially undesirable effect of preventing, or slowing down, the accumulation of human capital. The reduction in human capital investment is a trade-off which can have negative effects on the economy as a whole.
  • Factors other than free trade might explain this effect. First, young students may drop out if the returns to schooling are not high enough to compensate for the additional investment.  Second, a lack of access to credit and insurance for relatively poorer households might make it impossible for aspiring students to finance their investment and obtain higher returns by continuing to tertiary education or to cope with shocks and avoid abandoning school.  Finally, the result could be driven by a lack of availability of information about actual returns to investment in education, which could lead to myopic decision-making.

The movement of capital toward locations with lower labor costs is an expected, and intended, result of an agreement such as NAFTA, pursuing higher export competitiveness at the regional level.  David Ricardo would have said that TVs and automobiles shall be made in Mexico, while software shall be made in Silicon Valley.  What completes the story, however, is that because of distortions like the ones mentioned above – low educational quality, under-developed credit markets, or weak information that skews decision-making – free trade might lead to socially undesirable consequences.  And it did in the case of Mexico, as Atkin convincingly shows in his paper.  It seems that when Ricardo gets to the tropics, the world gets more complex.

November 7, 2016

* Raymundo Miguel Campos Vázquez teaches at the Centro de Estudios Económicos at el Colegio de México, and is currently conducting research at the University of California, Berkeley.  Luis-Felipe López-Calva is Lead Economist and Co-Director of the World Development Report 2017 on Governance and the Law.  Nora Lustig is Professor of Latin American Economics at Tulane University.

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by clalsstaff on November 7, 2016  •  Permalink
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https://aulablog.net/2016/11/07/does-trade-incentivize-educational-achievement/

Colombia: University Professors Appeal for Post-Referendum Solution

By Eric Hershberg and Fulton Armstrong

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At a march for peace in Bogotá, Colombia, a woman holds a sign that states, “We are the generation of peace.” / Agencia Prensa Rural / Flickr / Creative Commons

A group of Colombian university professors have organized an appeal to their colleagues in and outside the country to sign a petition “requesting an effective solution without delay” to overcome the impasse created by rejection of the peace accord on October 2.  The text of the petition, which currently has more than 1,700 cosigners, is as follows:

[We] university professors, from different disciplines, universities, and regions, join our voices with those underscoring the urgent need to reach, as soon as possible, a final Accord to end the conflict with the FARC.  Delay poses enormous risks.  It is essential to set, with all urgency, an agenda for talks limited to points requiring discussion, with concrete and viable proposals for modifying the existing text.  Reflecting the extremely close results in the October 2 plebiscite, the agenda should address the concerns of the No voters, who won the vote, while respecting the voice of the equally numerous Yes voters, who supported a text that cannot be wholly reevaluated, as well as those who did not speak at the polls.

The result of the plebiscite on Sunday [2 October] provides the unique opportunity to adjust the existing Accord in a way that draws a majority of society.  Capitalizing on that opportunity is the responsibility of all sides:  the FARC, the representatives of No, and those of Yes.  The plebiscite leaves no doubt – and the mobilizations in the streets and social media confirm – that society demands that all be flexible in their positions.  That’s what the youth demand as they convoke marches and other actions to push a quick Agreement, and which we support without hesitation.

The professors are an important voice of society and, as the statement explicitly states, of young people throughout the country who aspire to have a peaceful future.  The statement dodges specifics on what needs to be changed in the accord, but its assumption that sufficient pressure can be brought on all parties, including those who opposed the accord, to find common ground is credible.  Appeals such as this – unprecedented in the sheer number as well as in the wide range of institutions, disciplines, and regions that are represented – will be a good test of the capacity of Colombian civil society, such as the Academy, to push compromise, and for others, such as the economic elites, to achieve compromise.  Agreement may emerge, for example, to move discussion of certain social issues, such as those that riled some religious groups, into another venue so they aren’t an obstacle to agreement on war-and-peace issues.  The professors have their finger on the pulse of the nation and grasp the underlying political, economic, and social drivers of peace – and their optimism that neither side will come to a new negotiating table with dealbreakers is probably more warranted than anyone else’s.

Click here to see the original Spanish version of the petition.

October 14, 2016

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by clalsstaff on October 14, 2016  •  Permalink
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Can Latin America Achieve Fiscally Sustainable and Egalitarian Social Citizenship?

By Fernando Filgueira*

Uncertain Future

Photo Credit: Jan Tik / Flickr / Creative Commons

Latin America is undergoing a profound transformation of its social policies and of the very concept of social citizenship, but the outcome of this process is far from certain.  Electoral democracy, urbanization, increased educational attainment, and increased exposure to new and broader consumption patterns have destroyed the political foundations for conservative modernization.  The turn of the century has witnessed advances in social outcomes and public policies that for the first time provide a true window of opportunity for achieving more productive and egalitarian societies.

  • Decreasing poverty, lower income inequality, improved and expanded employment, and access to transfers and services to popular sectors were made possible by five critical factors: booming prices for Latin American commodities fueled economic growth and employment; stable prices – a positive legacy of the Washington Consensus era – meant that wages and transfers were not undermined by inflation; increased state fiscal capacity and commitment to social policy enabled a doubling in 15 years of real social per-capita expenditure; a demographic dividend, when combined (the young and the elderly) dependency ratios are lowest as a percentage of the population; and improved education access, completion, and credentials, which facilitated enhanced opportunity and increased productivity.

Yet these five advantages will lose steam in the next couple of decades.  Growth will wither as the commodity boom ends and expansionary monetary policy is limited.  Most Latin American economies are facing increased inflationary pressures. Existing tax structures and in some cases productivity levels will not permit social expenditure to increase at the rate of the last 15 years.  The easy phase of the demographic transition (when dependency rates are going down) is or will be over in most countries towards 2025.  Some countries in the region will face the European dilemma of an aging population, but they will do so with a lower GDP per-capita, weaker fiscal capacities of states, and a significantly more unequal income distribution.  While the soft targets of expanded education – primary school and expansion of lower middle school – have been achieved, the tough ones remain: extended coverage in early childhood, completion of high school, quality improvement, and true reduction of inequality of outcome in learning.

  • Five fault lines in Latin American social regimes make these problems a major threat to the sustainability of both social and economic development. A) Women’s incorporation into the labor market remains low (50 percent) and is highly stratified.  B) The absence of a robust state-led care system for early childhood and the persistence of a patriarchal distribution of care burdens undermines a route to development that is both more efficient and egalitarian.  C) Stark contrasts between insiders and outsiders in informal and formal labor markets and access to social protection and cash transfer  systems contribute to an expansionary monetary and fiscal policy that mainly benefits insiders unwilling to be taxed for redistributional public and collective goods and insurance. D) The region’s middle class and new emergent class, moreover, are not willing to increase taxation, since they do not perceive the quality of public goods and collective social services as adequate. And E) the pattern of fertility shows some of the worst patterns in social terms, including that most biological reproduction is left to the poor: Latin American governments do not equalize opportunity early on and through the educational system – which in the most unequal region of the world with diminishing but non-convergent fertility rates – leads to a productivity failure since underinvesting in the poor is underinvesting in the frontier of productivity enhancement.

These challenges will condition the possibility of a new social citizenship and a social investment model based on robust public goods, expansion of merit goods, and universality of entitlements.  It is not enough that elites are no longer able to control the political and economic game through status enclosure and authoritarianism.  In order to craft truly universal social policies conducive to providing inclusion for all, societies must confront narrow corporatism and restricted targeting – and the political economy they sustain.  Contributory models based on formal wages and targeted social policies based on need will not disappear, but they have to take a back seat to a model of basic universalism where access to quality public and collective goods is truly universal, and entitlements in transfers and services are not dependent on need or labor formality.  There have been important advances, such as a marked increase in non-contributory systems of cash transfers in terms of pensions and child-family transfers, but the commodity boom and the rise of the emergent and middle classes that drove them are not permanent.  A coalition that is willing to forgo private spending power in order to enhance quality of life through collective services is needed.  Such a coalition is made conceivable by these political, economic, and social epochal changes, but it is by no means guaranteed.  If reforms do not make it a reality, the promise will be shattered, and the pendulum between failed populism, with state-led “Robin Hood” incorporation attempts, and a technocratic closure of democracy and state bashing, will remain the central and tragic dynamic of the region.**

July 18, 2016

*Fernando Filgueira is a Senior Resarcher at the Centro de Información y Estudios del Uruguay (CIESU) and Collaborating Researcher the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.  He is a member of the International Panel for Social Progress led by Amartya Sen.

**Read the full version of this essay, which is based on research done for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and for EUROsociAL on social policy, labor dynamics, and demographic change.

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by clalsstaff on July 18, 2016  •  Permalink
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Posted by clalsstaff on July 18, 2016

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