Try to picture this: you're from a middle-class family and decided to study abroad in Switzerland because you know that they have one of the most successful hospitality management programs and it has the most beautiful sceneries in the world, studying there has been your dream since you were still a high school senior. You know that your parents are fully supportive of you studying abroad because they want you to be happy and successful, even though it is a big financial burden for them, but you keep thinking that you can work a part-time job when you arrive to alleviate the financial stress for your parents. Finally, after all the hard work and preparation you put into for coming to Switzerland, your parents finally decide to make your dream come true., When you arrive to the new campus, or what they often called: your new home, things aren't exactly going like the way you originally planned, you found out that you are not allowed to work off-campus due to their never-ending list of immigration rules. And if you work over twenty hours a week, it is also a violation for your visa and can result in deportation. As the semester goes on, you realized that the money your parents send to you is barely enough for you to get by every month, having to pay for literally everything including your tuition and miscellaneous living expenses, but you don't want to ask them for more money because you know that they have sacrificed more than 

they should have for you to achieve your goals in the first place. You asked yourself "why can international students only allowed to work twenty hours a week and not allowed to work off campus?" Even though this is just an example, this is exactly the same question that hundreds of thousands of international students here in the United States have when they try to look for part-time job opportunities. And of course, there is definitely some reasoning behind this for the United States government to put such a strict immigration law in place: many people are concerned that terrorists might take advantage of this route to enter the country and become a national security threat, while the other are worried about foreign students taking up all the employment opportunities, but is it really worth it to just send all the international students back to their home soil after graduation?

Every year, more and more international students decide to come study in the United States. As a matter of fact, the number of international students in the United States has grown from approximately 110,000 in 2001 to 524,200 in 2012. (Ruiz) It's a point of pride for many politicians that American universities consistently attract more students from all over the world than any other country. (Groden) True, these international students decide to leave their own countries to come over to the U.S. because of the strong reputation and the unique cultural experience that can't be found elsewhere. (Tempera) However, there is a price associated with those benefits that these students have to pay. 

As we are all aware, higher education in the United States is not cheap, in fact it is considered the most expensive among most of other countries. (Taylor) Not being citizens of the U.S. and the state in which they are studying, thus did not pay any taxes in that state previously, International students already have heavier financial responsibilities as they have to pay their tuition at the out-of-state rates. (Sami) And since international students are not eligible for federal student loans and financial aids unlike their fellow domestic students, they have to either fully fund themselves or find other scholarship sources to cover the costs. Additionally, while a lot of the college students have a part-time job while being a full-time college student since it allows students to earn additional cash to pay their tuition or other living expenses. International students, however, are not able to take advantage of this opportunity. While not allowed to work off-campus, international students are restricted to a twenty-hour work limit per week for the already-competitive on-campus positions. This gives many international students a very big headache because they can't help pay some of the bills by working a part-time job. The immigration policies create a tremendous amount of illegal job opportunities. ("The Right to Work") Many international students, despite knowing the risks of getting caught, decided to work off-campus illegally just so they can earn extra money to support themselves, because "everybody does it." (Villumsen)

Imagine that you are asking someone to come over to your place for a potluck dinner but you kick the person out of your house once you have gotten the dish that person brought. Seems pretty mean and unacceptable to you, right? The government of the United States, however, is doing the exact same thing to the international students: they want them here for their tuition, but they don't want them for their talent. (Groden)

Even though the reasons for the students to work illegally seem to be legitimate, it is quite concerning at the same time. Often time the employers of these illegal student-workers typically pay them below minimum wage because they are not technically legal to work so they don't have to follow the laws, and often treat them unfairly such as lower their already-low wages or withhold their salary with all kinds of different reasons. But because these student-workers  do not have a work permit and are working illegally, there is no way for them to report the unfair treatments that they receive from their employers, as it could possibly affect the immigration or visa status of the student. Rosanne, an international student studying at the University of Washington recalls that her previous employer at a restaurant not only owed her over one thousand dollars but he ran away so she never got paid. (Yeung) Rosanne is just one of the many illegal student-workers that received unfair treatments from their employers, there are far more international students who are in the same boat Additionally, since the earning of these international students are off the books, they do not have to pay taxes like you and I do, which can be a pretty serious issue in the long run.

These illegal jobs also has negative effects on the country's economy. International students contribute a lot to the U.S. economy with billions of dollars every year spent on their tuition and other living expenses. ("The Right to Work") Inability to work off campus only makes these international students to hesitate about their decision of coming here to study. On top of that, this can force the students who have graduated from an U.S. institution to return to their home because there is nowhere for them to apply what they have learned here in the countries. There is a set quota of 65,000 for work visas every year plus 20,000 more for applicants who have master's degree or higher, but doesn't come close to meet the demands as in 2014, the United States Citizen and Immigration Services stopped accepting applications after receiving 172,500 applications within the first week, which is three weeks earlier than their original deadline for people to apply. (Groden) This causes a loss of a great amount of skilled personnel, and in some way, create competition with the United States because of them returning to their home country and work for a competition company. In fact, it might be the case that most international students don't want to stay in the United States after graduation, especially for students from countries that are going through economic booms. China, South Korea, and India are in high demands for American-educated students. So when making the decision about whether to stay and work here in the United States worrying about securing work visas and other uncertainty or to just go home and open a new business or work for a corporate there. (Groden) In addition, most international students are multilingual. In the time period that many companies are doing international business, these international students can actually be beneficial for these companies as they can speak multiple languages and have better understanding of the culture of the country. ("International Students Facing Difficulties")

Of course, there are some other ways for international students to work off campus legally, such as curricular practical training (CPT) and optional curricular training (OPT), but some of the requirements such as that the position has to be related to the students' field of study, and other requirements such as the application fee, the lengthy application process, and unreasonably long wait time just make students back off from applying. (Brockman)

This past week I created an online survey and sent it out to as many students as I can here at the University of South Carolina to see what people's understanding is in terms of immigration laws for international students. Out of the seventy-three samples, who identify themselves as American citizens, that I collected, sixty-two (84.93%) doesn't know anything about the immigration laws that international students have to abide by; seven (9.59%) have heard of some of the regulations and have some understanding to it; four (8.22%) have heard of the laws and have a pretty good understanding to it. Some might argue that this is only based on a very specific population: college students at the University of South Carolina, but still I think it gives us a pretty good look on how many people don't actually have any idea what this topic is all about. There's old saying back home that says "conflict arises from not understanding", so it would be important to educate and inform the general public to raise their awareness on how 

these policies play such a big role and have a big effect to their everyday life.

So you might have someone that questions why are international students  not allowed to work off-campus? Some might say that because their purpose of being in the United States is to study, therefore they should only focus on the academics, since having a part-time job will distract them from their school work. But college students are considered young adults, who are basically independent and don't need other people to tell them what to do and when to do some things, and there are many other "legal" options that can easily distract students from the school work. People can also argue that there are other people, such as terrorist and other illegal immigrants might take advantage of this pathway to enter the United States, which poses a great national security threat. However, these people forgot about some other things too. Upon their arrival into the United States, all foreign visitor are required to have their finger prints recorded by the US customs and border protections agents. Another thing is that these international students are not only here for a degree but also for an experience of the American culture and learn about this country, both of which are not something that can be taught in the classroom. We should be proud that they choose America over 194 other countries (195 minus their native land) to study abroad. Additionally, international students have to remain as full-time students at their institution in order for them to maintain their visa status, which requires students to keep up with their school work so they don't fall behind in their classes. Some people might also say that allowing international students to work off-campus will cause unemployment rate to go up as these international students are taking job opportunities from local residents. In reality, however, this simply is not true. In the 2012-2013 academic year, international students nationwide actually contributed 313,000 jobs and added twenty-four billion dollars to the U.S. economy, which is a 6.2 percent increase in job support and creation and close to ten percent increase in dollars contributed to the economy from the previous academic year. (Yeung) And to add on to that, these international students aren't looking for full time, executive positions at a big corporate; they are just trying to get a job from the restaurant down the street to earn some cash to help support themselves.

Additionally, while some people might argue that international students shouldn't be studying abroad if they could not afford the cost in the first place, keep in mind the reason why the majority of the international students keep wanting to come to the US for a degree in higher education. It is simply not because they are rich (well, some of them) and they want to spend money, but because of the quality of the American higher education and the unique cultural experience that someone can't get from going elsewhere. We should not base everything off of money, instead we should be proud of the success of our education system and how they can attract thousands of hundreds incoming international students.

As an international student myself, I can understand  the frustration having such a strict restriction for working in the U.S. But there is something that I am more concerned about. As an athletic training major and a passionate prospective certified athletic trainer, I see most of the graduates from our program got offered graduate assistant positions to a variety of graduate programs at many different reputable institutions such as Louisiana State University and University of North Carolina, in which they get their graduate degrees paid for while receiving monthly stipends and gain work experience working independently as a certified athletic trainer at the same time. However, a study done to assess the burnout of graduate assistant certified athletic trainers shows that these athletic trainers work averagely 39.0  plus or minus  13.5 hours a week in their clinical settings, while enrolled in 10.0  plus or minus  3.5 graduate credit hours. (Mazerolle) This has way exceeded the allowed twenty-hour limit and can potentially be too stressful for these graduate assistants, which means that if I am planning on furthering my education by going to graduate school, I might have to pay the tuition in full just because of the time commitment required by the assistantship position, even though I am more than qualified for the job. I can see some people might argue that working forty plus hours a week while still in school getting a master's degree is too much for international students, but compared to the course and clinical demands for athletic training majors in undergrad it is nothing but a piece of cake. It will have prepared me to be successful in this profession in terms of time and stress management. I am sure that I am not the first, and certainly will not be the last, person to feel this way. Many graduate international students actually take advantage of the full-ride benefits that graduate assistantships offer to pursue post-baccalaureate degrees and gain precious work experience. But the twenty-hour-per-week limit forces these talented international students to take on positions that are not as good as the original one. And even though President Obama's executive action on immigration back in November 2014 can potentially play a big role in terms of being more flexible on immigration regulations and affect as many as 256,000 foreign workers, the actual benefit from these changes is still limited. (Groden) 

While the United States being one of the countries that has strict regulations for international student-workers, other countries around the world are much looser in terms of regulating the working status of their international students. Australia and England allow international students to work part-time off campus as long as these students remain the full-time status at the institutions in which they are enrolled. (Yeung) Other countries such as Canada, France, and Germany also have similar rules that allow international students to seek off-campus employment. ("Countries That Allow International Students") Why can these countries do something that we can't or we are not willing to do? Are we by any means any inferior than any of these countries? Understandably, there are people who are concerned about students losing focus in their academics, terrorists entering and causing national security threat, or international students taking up all the employment. But the requirement of these students to remain in full-time position with the institution in which they are enrolled basically makes sure that the student will not drop out of school. Additionally, all foreign visitors (tourists and students, basically anyone entering the States on a visa.) have to scan their finger prints before they can enter the country, which allows the authority to create a database of the fingerprints of foreign personnel in the country. Also, international students, especially undergraduate students who are interested in finding an off-campus job are not expecting to find an executive position for large companies.

There are some things that can be done in terms of allowing longer workhours and off-campus employment to international students. First of all, like many other countries, we can require all international students who are working off-campus to maintain their visa status, and even require them to have a certain grade in order for them to work off-campus. Second of all, requiring them to have a monthly or bimonthly meeting with the officers in the international student affairs office to make sure everything is still in good standing. Last but not least, require all international students to register in a database to track their employment history, this was the government will have a better look at who are the normal students who are just trying to earn some case and who are the people that take advantage of the student status and are solely here for the purpose of work but not study.

Instead of continuing to worry about more and more international students becoming illegal workers and cause a bunch of other issues that come with it, why can't the 

government just loosen the restrictions and allow these students to work off campus? Once the regulation is loosened, it will immediately create a huge source of relatively cheap and skilled labors, which can play a huge role in helping with the country's economy, especially when nowadays most products are made outside of the United States, this will provide and opportunity in keeping some of the product productions inside the United States. All these evidences show that there are only more goods than bads for allowing international students to work off campus, so what are we still waiting for? If we don't change the status quo, sure, international students will keep on arriving, studying, and working hard -- and then turned away by the United States government.

Politics has delayed any real progress on this issue, even though the desire to fix immigration for high-skilled workers is a rare piece of common ground between Democrats, Republicans, and business interests, (Groden) each party only take their own benefits into consideration and they are not willing to take the risk of pissing off their supporter for the greater benefits. So while we are sitting here trying to wait for the people with power to decide what they are going to do, and try to push the legislators about loosening the regulations at the national level, in the meantime, what we can do as individuals is to educate and inform the general public, to raise awareness on how this seemingly unrelated topic can actually play a huge role and affect people's everyday life. I believe that once everyone knows the difficulties and challenges that these international students face, it will be much easier for them to see the unnecessariness of these strict regulations and really, to help make America great again!

