Latest / NO FILTER / _Damage has already been done__ Harvard student body president speaks out on Trump threats(MP3_160K)

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_Damage has already been done__ Harvard student body president speaks out on Trump threats(MP3_160K) · NO FILTER

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And joining us now is Harvard Student Body President and
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: international student Abdullah Shahid se Y'all. And of course it's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: commencement day at Harvard. You graduate in twenty twenty seven,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: hence why you're not there right now, But that means
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: your status still very much depends on this legal fight.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling, what's going through your mind in
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  Speaker 1: this moment?
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  Speaker 2: First of all, thank you so much for having me.
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  Speaker 2: And second of all, I think the biggest, the biggest
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  Speaker 2: concern not just in my mind but on the minds
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  Speaker 2: of thousands of internationals right now is will they be
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  Speaker 2: able to return next semester And there's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: uncertainty around it. And again I want to contextualize this
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  Speaker 2: really well, that these are literally like seventeen, eighteen to
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  Speaker 2: nineteen year olds who have come to the US without
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  Speaker 2: any family, and they don't know what their next few
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  Speaker 2: months ivent caill look like, whether they can come to
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  Speaker 2: the country where they cannot, whether they can board a
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  Speaker 2: flight or they cannot. All of this is placed under
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  Speaker 2: a lot of scrutiny and they're not sure what to do,
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  Speaker 2: and that shouldn't be happening to people this year.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: You are from Pakistan, right and yesterday, I want you
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  Speaker 1: to listen to what President Trump said, partly explaining his
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  Speaker 1: reasoning for this crackdown on international students.
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  Speaker 3: Like you, listen, Harvard has to show us their lists.
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  Speaker 3: We want to know where those students come. Are they troublemakers?
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  Speaker 3: What countries do they come? And we're not going to
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  Speaker 3: if somebody is coming from a certain country and they're
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  Speaker 3: one hundred percent fine, which I hope most of them are,
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  Speaker 3: but many of them won't be. You're going to see
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  Speaker 3: some very radical people. They're taking people from areas of
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  Speaker 3: the world that are very radicalized, and we don't want
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  Speaker 3: them making trouble in our country.
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  Speaker 1: Would you characterize your peers as radicals or troublemakers some
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  Speaker 1: public policy.
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  Speaker 2: And in the comparative study, I would actually characterize them
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  Speaker 2: as most of them being teenagers who came into this
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  Speaker 2: country without any strong opinions. I'm twenty years old, I'm
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  Speaker 2: rising junior. Yet I don't think I know about the
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  Speaker 2: world enough to have a strong opinion or quote and
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  Speaker 2: quote be radicalized in a particular manner, and I think
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  Speaker 2: that's the case with almost every single international hair. I
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  Speaker 2: also want to make it very very clear that this
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  Speaker 2: is just a front. Uh, this, this entire threught is
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  Speaker 2: just a front for for the Trump administration to make
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  Speaker 2: Corvard bent according to their will. International students in this
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  Speaker 2: case just happened to be the most vulnerable population who
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  Speaker 2: are the least detected by US law, and they just
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: happened to be under have found themselves in this costs fire,
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  Speaker 2: none of which they signed up for. I don't think
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  Speaker 2: I'm radicalized. I don't think like most of my peers are.
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  Speaker 2: But again, it's a very classic populist narrative of how
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  Speaker 2: you know, these foreigners coming in and they happen to
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  Speaker 2: represent all that's wrong with higher education Harvard, and I
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  Speaker 2: think the student body at Lawge, not just internationals, they
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  Speaker 2: don't equivocally reject this entire this Yeah, this entire notion.
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  Speaker 1: And of course there are the opportunities for the US
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  Speaker 1: to benefit from the knowledge that you have and gain
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  Speaker 1: as a student here in the You, as I know
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  Speaker 1: you're majoring in applied mathematics and economics, how are you
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  Speaker 1: grappling with the prospect that you may be forced to
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  Speaker 1: finish your studies somewhere else.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's really unfortunate and I want to bring
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  Speaker 2: back what you just said. Silicon Valley, for example, was
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  Speaker 2: built on the shoulders of international students who came into
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  Speaker 2: the US, and now it has employed so so many individuals,
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  Speaker 2: and at the end, again, it's really unfortunate that the
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  Speaker 2: people who again represent the absolute best in their own
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  Speaker 2: respective countries who come here now can't continue to continue
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: their education in many cases. And I think even if
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  Speaker 2: President Trump stops right now, even if he doesn't do
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  Speaker 2: anything else, I think the damage has already been done
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  Speaker 2: to the point where students from abroad feel extremely unwelcome
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  Speaker 2: within the recent the United States. And we'll see, we'll
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  Speaker 2: probably see and it's very very likely our decrease in
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  Speaker 2: yield rates, we'll see less applications coming into the US,
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  Speaker 2: and we'll also see less international students opting to attend
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  Speaker 2: college in the US against it offers from perhaps the
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  Speaker 2: UK or Canada.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Abdullah Shahi Si y'all, thank you very much for joining us,
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  Speaker 1: sharing your perspective and your experience with US. Appreciate it
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  Speaker 1: very much.