The Politics Behind the Student Visa Gambit

Introduction

When the Aspiring Orange Dictator announced plans to approve 600,000 visas for Chinese students, the move shocked even his own loyalists. The right erupted in outrage, calling it a betrayal of the “America First” agenda. Social media lit up with racist dog whistles about spies and stolen opportunities, while conservative media scrambled to spin the announcement as a purely economic decision. Beneath the noise, this moment revealed something deeper: the contradictions at the heart of American politics, education, and capitalism.

This is not just about student visas. It is about who benefits from a broken system and who gets played in the process.

This research is easy to find for now, but many are neither disciplined nor knowledgeable enough to look for it or read it. A peer-reviewed study examined how much states spend on kids and what those kids actually learn. The results were blunt. States that lean blue put roughly $10,300 into each student. Red states put in closer to $7,700. That gap showed up in the classroom too. Students in blue states scored higher on 4th- and 8th-grade reading and math tests. But here is the kicker: once researchers controlled for money spent, the achievement gap disappeared. In other words, it was not about innate ability or culture. It was about resources. Invest more in schools and students do better. Starve them of funding and outcomes fall. It. Is. That. Simple.

The Announcement

The Aspiring Orange Dictator framed his decision as pragmatic. He praised Chinese students as dedicated and claimed U.S. colleges would collapse without them. He even went further, suggesting that foreign students should be allowed to stay after graduation. Great, I love that. But for a man who built his brand and ascent to political office on nationalist slogans, the statement was jarring… for many in his base. It clashes glaringly with his “America First” persona and highlights the transactional way he views education: as an industry dependent on international tuition dollars. Or as institutions he can shake down for millions but that’s a blog post for a different time.

Conservative Backlash

Red-hat loyalists went into full meltdown! Big Mad. On X, the racist insinuations came fast, with accusations that Chinese students are spies and warnings about “foreigners taking seats” from Americans. The same paranoid crazy bigotry, but as our current Secretaries dismantle our security apparatuses, who knows who might be entering the country now…again another blog post for a different time. 

One of the loudest voices was the nauseating Baby-Faced Supremacist, who accused the party of promising mass deportations while quietly serving Wall Street and Silicon Valley by importing the kind of labor billionaires actually want: high-skilled immigrants and cheap undocumented workers. His point stung because it cut close to the truth. The outrage was not really about policy but about betrayal and exposure. I have absolutely no care lately he seems to be saying things I agree with, full stop he too is a dangerous cretin but lets explore some of his recent grievances against Captain Cankles. Joy reid did an excellent job of breaking him down and encouraging folks to not jump on the Baby-Faced Supremacist bandwagon – he is not like us to quote Sir Kendrick. But he can continue to give Candace the business … she not like us either. Again I digress. 

The Economics of Higher Education

For those that know: international students help keep U.S. universities financially afloat. Period. They pay full tuition, unlike many U.S. students who rely on aid and loans or get in state rates, which is NOT a bad thing. Higher Education could be free for all but …alright I ned to stop with these tangents.

As I was saying, higher education institutions in the US like others around the world,  recruit them aggressively because their dollars subsidize everything from faculty salaries to research labs. As one TV host and former professor noted, her Chinese students were often dedicated and respectful, but more importantly, they were not on scholarship and they paid in full.

This dynamic explains why elite schools fight so hard to admit foreign students. It also explains why universities would not survive without them. Some of those students stay and build industries here, such as the South African Tech Baron and his PayPal crew. Others return home and fuel technological advances abroad. Either way, their impact is undeniable.

The Broken “America First” Education System

Here is the uncomfortable truth: many American students could not take those spots even if they were available. We are as smart as we think we are in the global community and that education/preparation gap is growing! The U.S. K–12 system is chronically underfunded, especially in red states that invest the least in education. Because school funding is tied to property taxes, wealthier zip codes produce well-prepared applicants while poorer districts struggle with outdated textbooks and stripped-down curricula.

Culture wars have only worsened things. Unnecessary and purposeful distractions to divide the American people for the benefit of the wealthy. Science is sidelined, history is rewritten, and “values” like mandatory Bible study replace rigorous preparation. The result is predictable: American students are less competitive internationally. Demanding that foreign students step aside does not magically make Appalachian kids Yale-ready. In a lot of red states, science and math take a back seat while politicians hand out Bibles in classrooms. It is not just bad policy, it feels deliberate. An elite few seem intent on sabotaging public education, keeping communities underfunded, underinformed, and easier to control. Ignorance is not an accident here. It is the plan. 

Who Benefits? The Billionaire Agenda

This is where the Baby-Faced Supremacist’s critique, disturbing as its source may be, lands accurately..but he still a cretin not to be trusted. 

Billionaires want it both ways: skilled immigrant engineers to keep tech humming and undocumented farm workers to keep labor cheap. Working-class white men are told college is worthless, then enraged when they cannot compete for elite slots. The game is not populism. It is profit. That is why Bernie has been filling stadiums. And those at the top happily stoke resentment to keep attention off themselves.

Political Strategy and Distraction

Notice the shift in the Aspiring Orange Dictator’s rhetoric. Immigration used to be the obsession, with constant talk of mass deportations, walls, and caravans. Now the language leans heavily on “crime,” with visions of militarized police and troops patrolling American streets. This is not about public safety. It is spectacle politics, designed to entertain the base while distracting them from the billionaires who are actually running the table.

Many observers are warning that this “crime” talk is really about preparing a force that could be used to interfere with free and fair elections in 2026. The numbers for the Red Party are tanking. They face the real possibility of losing not only the House but also the Senate. That is why their leaders are doing everything they can to rig the game in their favor. They know progressives and liberals are turning out in larger numbers, and even some lifelong conservatives are starting to walk away from the Orange Dictator.

Take a look at interviews with Midwestern farmers who once wore their red caps with pride. Now many are singing a different tune as they lose their farms. It is not because they suddenly discovered empathy for their neighbors. It is because they are being crushed by the very economic system they thought would save them. I explored this in my episode on interest convergence. Their shift is not about solidarity; it is about survival.

The Broader Takeaway

At the end of the day, ordinary Americans, whether white, Black, Asian, or Latino, share the same needs: living wages, affordable education, healthcare, and stability. Yet we are encouraged to blame immigrants, trans kids, or “woke professors” for problems rooted in systemic greed. Hateful distractions that are purposeful.

Until people recognize that the real divide is not race, gender, or whatever difference they are told to fear, but economics, the billionaire class will keep winning while the rest of us fight over scraps. At the same time, we cannot ignore the persistence of white Christian nationalism. Far too many assumed it was fading, yet here it is, still infecting the hearts and minds of millions more than sixty years after the Civil Rights Movement. What is worse, it is beginning to capture younger generations, which should alarm anyone who cares about the future. Bigotry functions like a virus. If communities are not inoculated against it through education, truth, and solidarity, it spreads. And unless it is confronted directly, it can never be eradicated.

I know this is strong language, and some will criticize it. But when confronted with an administration that has made it painfully clear in 2025 that people who look like me are seen as lesser and treated as subhuman, there is no room for sugarcoating. The attacks are not abstract. They are spiritual, economic, and physical. In that reality, it feels less like a choice and more like a responsibility to call it what it is. We do not have the luxury of softening the truth. Naming it directly is the first act of resistance.

Take, for example, the quiet reinstallation of a portrait at West Point that clearly depicts an enslaved person in the background. That is not just an oversight. It is one of many calculated insults we are enduring, served up with explanations so condescending they assume we cannot see the message for what it is. We are expected to swallow these gestures as harmless tradition, but the reality is clear: they are reminders meant to put us in our place.

Call to Reflection

Let me close with this.

Before directing anger at foreign students or scapegoated groups, ask yourself: Who really profits from this arrangement? Who benefits from underfunded schools, sky-high tuition, and endless culture wars? The answer is not the student paying full tuition from Shanghai or Mumbai. It is the billionaire who needs both his engineers and his farmhands cheap.

The only path forward is solidarity. That means investing in education, breaking billionaire capture of politics, and refusing to let scapegoats distract us from the real theft.

Reflective Questions:

1. How might reframing immigration debates around shared economic struggles shift the way Americans see one another?
   
2. What would it take to build an education system that truly serves all U.S. students, rather than depending on foreign tuition to survive?