Navigating the legal constraints of being a nonimmigrant: A study of the technical communication challenges for international graduate students in the United States

This dissertation, Navigating the Legal Constraints of Being a Nonimmigrant: A Study of the Technical Communication Challenges for International Graduate Students in the United States, explores the issues that can occur for international graduate students when navigating situations involving technical communication before, and during, their stay as nonimmigrants in the U.S. while they attend graduate school. In this project, I analyze rhetoric as situational, expanding on our understandings of communicative constraints that occur in specific instances of intercultural communication. To begin this analysis, I conducted semi-structured interviews with current international graduate students at a R1 university in Virginia to discuss specific instances in which they felt constrained by their status as nonimmigrants. I then used initial coding and pattern coding to deconstruct specific themes of constraints from my data. There were two emergent themes to the constraints: technical, legal, and financial constraints, and ideological constraints. Within these two themes I found more specific codes which were: misperception, information access, incorrect information, time, linguistic, cultural, and institutional constraints. By coding these constraints, and analyzing how my participants navigated them, I demystify the issues faced by international graduate students in our institutions. One of the main findings of this project showcases that there is a gap between the social-justice oriented scholarship being produced in the fields of technical communication, rhetoric, and composition, and the lived experiences of international graduate students. I conclude that building scaffolded support structures that target instances where constraints are most likely to occur will better support international graduate students during their time at U.S. institutions.