Venkates Swaminathan
CalMatters
The first time I got on a plane was for a flight from Delhi, India to JFK Airport in New York. I came to the United States as a student, first to the University of Illinois, and after earning my master’s degree, to California, where I’ve lived ever since. I’ve built businesses, hired people and created a life here.
My story is the story of countless others who came to America to study, work and build. My roommate in graduate school, Arvind Krishna, is now the CEO of IBM. Millions of others have come to California and gone on to create lives and opportunities.
To be sure, international students aren’t the only — or biggest — immigrant community. Earlier this summer, I attended my niece’s graduation from UC San Diego and visited Chicano Park, where large murals adorn an outdoor cathedral to community activism, celebrating millions of immigrants whose labor and creativity built California.
That’s what makes today’s news so hard to watch. As the founder of a college counseling service, I have a front-row seat to a wave of recent federal policies reshaping education.
Recently the Supreme Court let the U.S Department of Education lay off thousands of employees, causing delays in processing financial aid, slowing civil rights investigations and presenting challenges for communities.
That’s just the latest blow. There have been cuts to research funding, a wave of new visa hurdles and efforts to dismantle diversity and inclusion initiatives that help underrepresented students. And, of course, recent ICE raids have disrupted long-settled immigrant communities in cities like Los Angeles.
I’ve seen the ripple effects in my work. Some international students are afraid to apply to college, afraid to leave for a distant campus or afraid to come to the U.S. at all.
Many of the students I counsel are immigrants or the children of immigrants. One college-bound student’s mother is from Vietnam and worked in a nail salon in Oakland. The student, while still in high school, handled the family’s taxes, filled out forms and held down a job.
She also earned a full scholarship. After she finishes her education, I’m confident she’ll make a remarkable contribution to the world.
One student, whose parents emigrated from India, went to UC Berkeley on a scholarship after developing an app to detect “forever chemicals” in their community’s water supply. Another student, whose parents came from Mexico to build a life in Southern California, is now in a nursing program at Cal State Fullerton.
There are thousands of these stories across the state. Each young person holds the potential to shape our future, to become the next great leader, innovator or healer.
International students not only bring skill and ambition — they bring real dollars to California.
The roughly 141,000 international students in California spent $6.4 billion in 2023, supporting 55,000 jobs, according to the NAFSA Association of International Educators. At public universities like UC and CSU, these students’ higher tuition helps fund financial aid and services for residents.
More broadly, immigrant households contribute $715 billion, or about a third of the state’s gross domestic product. Undocumented Californians alone pay about $8.5 billion a year in state and local taxes.
Much of the commentary about recent policy changes rightly focuses on the cruelty, but these measures harm all of us.
California’s strength comes from its immigrant communities. Our leadership in science, technology, agriculture, and the arts depends on students, scholars, and workers from around the world.
To protestors fighting to preserve immigrant rights and opportunity, your fight is our fight. To those who think this doesn’t affect you, I promise it will. It touches your economy and your children’s future. And to leaders advancing these policies in Washington and elsewhere — stop before California and America lose the very strengths that built them.
Venkates Swaminathan is the CEO of Santa Rosa-based LifeLaunchr, a college admissions coaching service
