Parachute children and student visas
Parachute children refer to minors sent by their families to the United States to pursue education while living independently. This phenomenon has notably grown over the past few decades, especially among affluent families from countries like Taiwan, South Korea, and China, seeking better educational opportunities for their children. Parachute children often arrive on student visas and face unique challenges, including cultural adaptation, emotional loneliness, and the need to navigate a new educational system without parental supervision. While many experience academic success, they also encounter vulnerabilities such as crime and isolation.
The motivations behind sending children abroad range from the pursuit of advanced English skills to the hope of enhancing future economic prospects and avoiding stringent educational requirements in their home countries. Following changes to federal immigration laws in 1996, which restricted international students' enrollment in public schools, parachute children have primarily continued their education in private institutions. Despite economic downturns impacting financial support, the trend persists, with parents still believing in the advantages of a Western education. Typically, parachute children come from wealthy backgrounds, reflecting a complex interplay of educational aspirations and family dynamics in a globalized context.
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Parachute children and student visas
DEFINITION: Children sent to the United States (US) by their families to attend American schools while living on their own
SIGNIFICANCE: As children in the US on student visas, parachute children experience immigration pressures and challenges similar to those of other child immigrants. They must adapt to a new land and learn to cope in a different educational environment. In addition, however, they are also expected to survive, succeed, and seek educational opportunities in the US while their parents are overseas.
During the last decades of the twentieth century, many affluent families in Asian nations such as the Philippines, India, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and especially Taiwan began sending their children to the US to attend schools and live independently. The states to which these children have been most frequently sent are New York, Texas, Washington, and particularly California. Michigan has also become a popular destination state for Chinese students. Children as young as eight years old have been sent to the US to live without parental supervision. In some cases, relatives or friends of the families have served as the children’s legal guardians. In other cases, boarding arrangements have been made with strangers, and in still other cases, older teenage children have been sent to live alone.
Parents who have sent their children to the US have continued to support them financially but have not been physically present in their children’s daily lives. Parents send children to be educated in the US and other countries for various reasons. Many hope that access to foreign educational opportunities will provide greater future economic opportunities for the children and their families than they would have if the children were educated in their own countries. Developing English skills and improving the children’s chances of gaining American college educations are often considered advantages.
Sometimes, parents wish to help their children avoid rigorous educational entrance assessments or stringent military requirements in their homelands. Other parents believe that having their children overseas may improve their own chances of being accepted as immigrants in those countries. Parents who choose to have their children educated in the US while they remain in their own countries typically believe that raising transnational families is in the best interests of their children’s futures.
Hard statistical data on so-called parachute children are scarce, but it is generally believed that most children sent to the US are financially supported. Because their parents do not directly supervise them, many enjoy freedoms beyond what is typical for American children of the same age. However, they also bear everyday responsibilities that their American counterparts rarely have. Typically lonely and homesick, parachute children focus their energies on their schoolwork and do well academically. However, their very independence also leaves them vulnerable. Many have been victims of crime, and some have been kidnapped.
In response to the growing numbers of young international students studying in public schools in the US, federal immigration law was changed in 1996. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act forbade international students from enrolling in public elementary and middle schools unless the schools were compensated for their educational costs. The law also limited the attendance of international students in public high schools to one year. However, parachute children have continued to come to the US because the law has not been strictly enforced and does not apply to private schools.
Downturns in the American economy have affected parachute children much more than the legal changes. Many parachute children have faced financial hardships as their funding sources have been reduced, and some have returned to their homelands. Still, in the 2020s, international students, particularly from China and Taiwan, continue to be sent to the US for their education. Parents continue to believe that access to Western education will provide their children with a competitive edge for secondary education admission and job prospects. In the 2020s, parachute children continued to primarily come from wealthy families.
Bibliography
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