I’ll Miss You, AlMutasimbilla
The Misplaced Decision to Deport 250,000 College Students
Tuesday, January 21, 2020. 3:30 p.m. Pre-COVID. I was writing at one of Denver’s local coffee hangouts, Aviano, while sipping a nice Peruvian medium roast. Occasionally, I glanced up to people watch, seeing if my next story to write about was unfolding.
Seated on the bench next to me was a young man, whom I guessed was in his mid to late 20s. He looked Middle Eastern. Possibly from one of the Gulf States, I thought to myself. Maybe UAE, Kuwait. He was with a friend, also Middle Eastern.
As a Jew, I’m keenly aware of the conflict between Jews and Muslims, especially in other parts of the world. This is one of the reasons why I often take it upon myself to reach out to Arabs and Muslims to break down the barriers of ignorance that divide us.
I’ve always believed that the more we as humans interact on a personal level, the less we engage in what I call “Racial Distancing.” This allows for more peace and harmony in the world.
See, it’s easy to demonize and worse, dehumanize, the “other” when we don’t put a face, a smile, or a family to “the other.” When we don’t think of them as being the same valuable humans as our own kind.
“Marhaba,” I said to both of the Middle Eastern young men as I smiled. The one closest to me turned and introduced himself. “Marhabtayn,” he smiled back. “I’m Matt. What’s your name?”
Having visited the Middle East multiple times, I made sure to learn some basic Arabic words. These came in handy while visiting Egypt, Jordan and the West Bank.
Marhaba was just a warm hello in Arabic. I’d learned “good morning” and “thank you,” that sort of stuff. I’ve found that speaking someone else’s language immediately brings a smile to their face and disarms most people from their normal apprehensions. Anytime I’ve dropped a few Amharic words to members of Denver’s large Ethiopian community, I’m almost always met with warm responses and wide smiles.
“Where are you from,” I continued the conversation with Matt, which I later learned was just the name he uses in America since pronouncing his real name, AlMutasimbilla, proved to be a handful for most Americans.
“Saudi Arabia,” he answered, now fully engaged in conversation with me as his friend texted away on his iPhone.
“Ah. We’re cousins,” I responded back with a genuine smile. “I’m Jewish. We share the same father, Abraham. Ibrahim.”
Matt didn’t have any Jewish friends in Saudi Arabia obviously and we both quickly understood our conversation represented a rare opportunity to learn so much from each other.
And so our friendship began. Jeffrey the Jew. Matt the Muslim. Kinda has a nice ring to it.
Over the ensuing months, we had lunches and dinners. Texting. Social media. Matt and I developed a true friendship, learning about each other’s families. Our parents. Our siblings. My kids.
Matt, it turns out, is in law school, and I’m a lawyer. We share a love for Middle Eastern and other ethnic food. Travel. Politics. Social justice. Hiking. You name it. We have so much in common.
The last time we had lunch over kabobs, Matt invited me to visit his family in Saudi Arabia next March while on his spring break from law school. I immediately and graciously accepted the invitation.
“I sure hope this Corona thing is over by then. It’s hard enough having to wait until March to see your country and meet your family,” I told him beaming with excitement.
You could tell Matt was also excited, explaining to me that he already told his parents about me.
“Will they be upset if you bring a Jew to your home?” I cautiously asked him, while still needing to know.
“No way! My parents are so excited to meet you!” “Most people in Saudi Arabia don’t think like that, despite how we’re portrayed on the news.”
This conversation took place on Thursday, June 25, almost six months to the day Matt and I first met over coffee. We already were planning our next dinner together. I told him that when my kids were back from camp later this summer, I wanted him to come over for dinner to meet them. “They already know a lot about you,” I boasted.
Now, fast forward to July 6, 2020, when the Trump Administration announced that it was kicking out all foreign students if the universities they’re attending are going to continue holding most classes online in the Fall.
Said another way more bluntly, since virtually every college will continue to offer online classes until COVID is behind us, those with student visas must leave the country or face deportation.
Of course, this new rule affects mostly non-European students. This isn’t a shocker given Trump’s history. Students from China, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Vietnam, and Brazil are among those being primarily affected.
Kicking them out will take $45 billion out of the U.S. economy for the coming year, including $728 million in California’s and $960 million to New York’s economies alone. That’s how much foreign-born students positively impact the U.S. economically, even with decreasing enrollment numbers since Trump took office.
To give you a sense of how much economic impact this is, the U.S. pharmaceutical industry exports $51 billion annually. Soybean exports have a $17 billion impact on our economy.
International students buy cars. They rent apartments. They eat in our restaurants. They grocery shop. They buy stuff just like U.S. citizens.
But it’s not just the immediate economic impact. Over forty percent of American Nobel Prizes won in chemistry, medicine, and physics were awarded to foreign-born students who were educated in and then immigrated to the U.S. Almost a quarter of the now billion-dollar startup companies were founded by international students.
Do the names Elon Musk (Tesla) and Satya Nadella (Microsoft) ring any bells?
And then there’s the benefit of making the rest of the world better. Sixty-two world leaders were educated at American universities.
Statistics aside, there’s also the critical intangible benefit that diversity brings to not only an educational institution but U.S. society as a whole. The opportunities to meet and learn about people different from ourselves. Enjoying a meal together. Discussing God, family, hopes, and dreams with those who look and think differently than us.
This allows us to build a better United States of America. One that practices empathy and compassion more easily. One that humanizes the rest of the human race. One which leads the world in kindness, not just cruise missiles.
The administration’s new rule will effectively boot from our soil over a quarter of a million college students this fall.
But worse, it will send my dear friend Matt home.
A young man who is studying to become an international lawyer. Who wants to make a difference in the world. Who wants to fight for peace and justice for all people. Who wants to help bridge the distance between so many of us humans.
As a nation that purports to be the world leader, we can do better than this. We must do better.
