踩着deadline给DHS新规写了点comments, 算是尽了份力

昨天踩着deadline花了个把小时把DHS新规粗略看了下然后随便写了点comments来说说自己看到的比较明显的几个点。现在comments已经通过审核发出来了(ICEB-2019-0006-29883和ICEB-2019-0006-29836，技术问题发重了）。其实这个规定对我的身份影响不大，不过感觉还是应该尽一份力。下面是comments全文，希望有点作用。

These proposed regulations are presented under the appearance of improving US national security without introducing excessive burdens and barriers for aliens admitted under the F, J, and I classifications, while in reality, they fail miserably to achieve both objectives. In fact, just a casual examination of these proposed regulations will reveal that the true purpose behind them are nothing but a disguised attempt by the Trump administration to introduce unwarranted obstacles to the holders of these statuses, without any material benefits to US national security, while significantly hindering the future competitiveness of the country in science and technology, wasting US taxpays’ money, and causing irreversible damage to the potential for sustained development of the country's economy.

Before getting into the nature of these proposed regulations and their effects, even their logical structure demonstrates a high level of negligence and carelessness in planning and composition at best, or willful and malicious ambiguity at worst, on the part of the DHS.

In section IV.E.IV.2, the proposed regulations explicit state that applications for both the post-completion OPT and EOS have to be filed if an alien in F status wishes to engage in post-completion OPT, but fail to address their relative timeframes for approval. This introduces the possibility that the former is approved before the latter is. This is by no means an unlikely possibility, as the current processing timeframe for EOS is routinely months longer than that for the EAD. The DHS also fails to explicit address whether the alien is eligible for employment should such a situation arise. These facts combined mean that under the proposed regulations, an alien in F status may have a valid EAD with a pending EOS and be ineligible for employment. In this case the alien’s period of unemployment will be counting and be completely outside of the alien’s control, without any possibility of recurse. This ambiguity in the proposed regulations amounts to a covert effective cancellation of the post-completion OPT program, which is overtly outside of the legal authorities of the DHS. The DHS therefore must address this ambiguity and ensure that an alien with an approved EAD is eligible for immediately employment.

In section IV.D.I, even though the proposed regulations address various scenarios with respect to the transition period, including aliens in F status with pending post-completion OPT and STEM-OPT applications, one of the most common scenarios is somehow left entirely unaddressed, i.e. how the transition period will be applied to aliens in F status with valid employment authorization as a result of post-completion OPT or STEM-OPT. In the context of the proposed regulations, the answer should obviously be that these aliens should remain unaffected, i.e. that they can remain in the US and be eligible for employment until the end of their employment authorization, plus 60 days of grace period. This important scenario must be addressed explicitly in the proposed regulations.

In section IV.E.II, the lifetime restriction of three programs in total for each alien in F status is written with ample ambiguity and leaves plenty of room for implementing completely unreasonable regulations. The DHS can easily adopt the interpretation that the three-program lifetime restriction means the total number of programs any alien in F status can enroll in any situation. This means that an alien in F status who has maintained the so-called “general upward progression in degree levels”, from Bachelor’s to Master’s to PhD, may find him/herself exhausting the lifetime restriction, and is unable to pursue an MBA degree in addition for example which is completely normal and common. The more reasonable interpretation of this lifetime restriction would be that the three programs only count changes to a lower or same degree level, i.e. in the above example, everything would only count as one program up to the PhD, with the MBA program as the second program. The DHS must clarify the definition and the method of counting for the three-program lifetime restriction. Moreover, additional exemptions must be introduced to account for exceptional circumstances, for example, when the change of program is not within the control of the student, as it is quite common for a PhD student to follow his/her adviser to a new school to continue the research project should the latter decide to change his/her school of employment. In this case, it is obvious that both PhD programs should be counted as one program.

In section IV.A.II.E, the DHS cites statistics on the timeframes of Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the US in an attempt to justify the reasonableness behind the 4-year and 2-year admission periods proposed. However, the DHS fails to mention that the annual report of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education (ED) also indicates that only 41% of college students in the US are able to complete their Bachelor’s degree program in 4 years, and only 59% do so after 6 years. The proposed admission periods are clearly unreasonable for Bachelor’s degree programs. What DHS also fails to mention is the fact that a significant fraction of students do not just pursue a single degree program, even those following the so-called “general upward progression in degree levels”. For example, it is extremely common for a student to pursue a Master’s degree after completing a Bachelor’s degree program, which will almost surely require more than 4 years in total. The proposed admission periods are absolutely unreasonable for these students. Furthermore, the DHS fails to consider the fact that a large percentage of students will decide to utilize post-completion OPT and possibly STEM-OPT, for a period of 1 to 3 years, as the work experiences add immeasurable value to the educational programs. This makes the proposed admission periods unreasonable for even more students. Lastly, there are the PhD students, whose programs usually take at least 5 years to complete. Even though the DHS casually admits the existence of such students, it fails to explain why it is justified and reasonable to introduce severe burden and the potential risk of interruption of their degree programs at mid to late stages to these students, who are arguably the most advanced academically in the general student population. All considered, if fixed admission periods must be introduced for aliens in F status, which is, in itself unwarranted, the period should be at least 10 years considering the length of Bachelor’s and PhD programs, students progressing upwardly in their degree programs, and those engaged in post-completion OPT and STEM OPT.

The introduction of fixed periods of admission for aliens in F status itself is completely unwarranted and unreasonable. The total timeframe of a student’s educational experience is by its very nature indeterminate, as a student will naturally decide to pursue new or alternative educational programs to expand his/her horizon as he/she grows and is exposed to new ideas and opportunities. Even within a degree program, there is a vast array of legitimate reasons that a student may need more time to complete the program, especially with research-based programs such as the PhD. Research by its very nature is unpredictable, where no one knows the answer, and there is no guarantee that an answer can be found or even exists. In any case, these extension applications concern very detailed aspects of the degree program, and are therefore the most appropriately handled by the school’s DSO under the current system. Immigration agents at the USCIS or CBP lack the necessary information, experience, and expertise to properly and equitably adjudicate such cases.

The introduction of fixed periods of admission for aliens in F status is also downright impractical. The current timeframe for processing EOS applications by the USCIS is already excessively lengthy. This timeframe will conceivably only become significantly longer should these proposed regulations be implemented. This lengthy period of uncertainty and the potential risk of an irreversible interruption in the degree program will place unreasonable burden on a large fraction of these students. The situation is even more severe for those seeking post-completion OPT, which can amount to a covert and illegal effective cancellation of the post-completion OPT program, as is described in paragraph three.

The DHS also makes a comical attempt in justifying the necessity of introducing fix-periods of admission for aliens in F status. The proposed regulations cite some edge cases such as aliens in F status for more than a decade or those having switched programs more than 10 times. First of all, it is important to note that these represent a tiny minority of the total population of aliens in F status. No regulation is perfect, and there always will exist minor edge cases. The DHS can address its concerns individually with these cases, while using them as an excuse to sanction the majority of the population is unjustifiable. Moreover, most of the already tiny number of aliens in F status who have stayed for more than a decade are probably completely legitimate. A student following the so-called “general upward progression in degree levels” from a Bachelor’s program to completing a PhD degree and perhaps an MBA degree afterwards can easily surpass that timeframe. In fact, many PhD programs in the humanities routinely require more than a decade of work just by themselves. The DHS additionally fails to materially demonstrate any historical threats to national security that could have been eliminated by the proposed regulations.

The United States has been the proud leader of the world in the advancement of science and technology as a result of the continual and relentless quest to expand the human knowledge by its academic institutions, and it owes these achievements largely to the contribution made by the vibrant and diverse population of foreign students and scholars seeking to enter its borders every year. While the DHS fails to offer any credible demonstration on any national security benefits that the proposed regulations can bring about, they unquestionably impose immerse obstacles to the life and career of these students and scholars. The United States stands to rapidly lose its competitive advantage in a fast-evolving global environment when it starts losing its appeal to these foreign students and scholars, and the DHS under the Trump administration is exactly seeking to do that with these proposed regulations. They shall not be implemented.

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有的标点符号从Word粘贴过来似乎有点weird.