This week, UCSD administration has announced its ambitious but highly controversial plan to build a wall around International House, a living-learning community that hosts students from over 40 countries. Inspired by the immigration reform plan proposed by presidential candidate Donald Trump, the wall around International House facilities is a measure necessary to prevent international students, who largely come to UCSD to recklessly party rather than study, from spreading their deviant behavior around campus. This concrete construction should also discourage internationals who come to UC schools with lower grade-point averages and test scores than in-state students from enrolling into our top university.
What do we know about I-House? It is a place where people party regardless of the day of the week. This is where international students go to loosen drug and crime regulations that prevail in many countries, and are involved in underage binge drinking and drug abuse. It’s where study rooms are full of people foaming at the mouth with alcoholic beverages instead of preparing for tests, which international students have little concern for. As if that was not enough, dissolute behavior of international students annually peaks during the Sun God Festival weekend. Widely known as a drinking hot spot, I-House beckons innocent students from all over UCSD. Driven by drunken hooliganism, parties at International House turn into three-day bacchanalias that even professional security guards have a hard time controlling.
“Let’s face it, the wristband policy does not work. I-House immigrants keep distributing alcohol and drugs around campus,” said Alphie Drumpf, a security guard who patrolled I-House during last year’s Sun God Festival. “These international students are out of control. We need a wall.”
Hiding behind the claims of “cultural exchange,” international students not only promote immoral behavior, but also inculcate their own values instead of adopting traditional UCSD ways. As UCSD students, we are united by negative sentiments towards party culture. The majority of us came here because we prefer to stay home on a Friday night, find pleasure in being free from STIs and only drink together with a computer or a TV screen. I-House aliens, however, have little respect for our on-campus culture and perpetually attempt to undermine UCSD’s moral and cultural foundations by hosting degrading parties in their luxurious two-story townhouse apartments, being overly supportive of athletic events and abusing their close proximity to the beach by visiting it every week. Not once a year — every-single-week — you heard it right. Are we going to put up with this impudence or are we going to build the wall? The answer should be self-evident.
Needless to say, these good-time Charlies do not excel in academics and simply occupy in-state students’ spots due to administration’s need for out-of-state tuition money. Those who live in International House are just cash cows that, according to a recent California State Auditor report, have lower past academic achievements once they enter UCSD. Being intellectually inferior, international students still receive access to the same resources as in-state students and citizens, taking away educational opportunities from old-fashioned, hard-working Americans. They have been taking advantage of this university for years, having some of the best living conditions on campus. The costs of providing academic resources to international students and maintaining International House have long exceeded the benefits we get from charging these students out-of-state tuition. But expelling these students would be a costly affair that might increase tuition for students from California. The wall ideally solves this problem by locking money-paying students in, while keeping them away from labs, libraries and gyms that rightfully belong to the native students.
A lot of criticism of the wall comes from students and their families’ unwillingness to pay for the wall through tax increases and additional fees. This concern is easy to deal with with — simplicity is genius. We will build the wall around I-House and make international students pay for it. Spending half a fortune each year on college tuition and fees, parents of international students will not even notice the new “Wall fee” and will happily pay, mistakenly assuming that they are investing in their children’s future.
Building a wall around International House is the ideal solution to the problem of invasive immigrants, seeking to disguise themselves as international students in our country. We call for other UCs to follow UCSD’s example and build walls around the habitation areas of international students. This university will not be taken advantage of anymore. It’s time to stop losing to the losers, and start making America great agains.
