Not again. DHS recently extended the time foreign students can stay in the US (albeit only in “science and technology” fields – meaning you’ll probably see fewer foreign students in post-modern feminist lit classes):

The DHS extended from 12 months to 29 months the length of time a graduating student in science and technology fields can stay in the U.S. without a worker visa. Microsoft and other supporters of a higher cap on H-1B immigrant worker visas have complained that the quota fills up before students graduate each year and that the 12-month period didn’t give those students enough time to become part of the next year’s H-1B crop.

To which our enlightened society of rent-seekers responds:

The Bush administration’s recent decision to extend the amount of time foreign nationals can work in the U.S. on student visas is being challenged in a federal lawsuit by H-1B visa opponents.

… The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, N.J., by the Immigration Reform Law Institute and joined by The Programmers Guild and other groups, charges that the administration’s decision in April to extend the work period for students under the Optional Practical Training provision is little more than an effort to get around the H-1B cap limit.

Get around the H-1B cap limit? Yes. H-1Bs are such low hanging fruit. The US is already a massive exporter of education – why not keep more of it here? According to numerous anecdotes, the scarcity of H-1Bs is responsible for numerous foreign graduates taking low-paying jobs in return for sponsorship by these large corporations – but I don’t see how making it easier to apply for an H-1B helps this argument. It may allow other companies that don’t have as regimented an application support process to seriously look at hiring foreign graduates of U.S. universities. Though small, these types of changes are important steps to fundamentally changing fortress-ammurika immigration policy.

And still people oppose it. Throughout the last decade it’s sickening how much U.S. citizenship has turned into another element of unearned privilege.