‘It’s a scary time’: US universities urge international students to return to campus before Trump inauguration

Fear and uncertainty are spreading across many US college campuses ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, with some schools advising international students to return early from winter break amid promises of another travel ban like the one that stranded students abroad at the start of Trump’s last term.

In a country where more than 1.1 million international students enrolled in US colleges and universities during the 2023-24 academic year, the former president has pledged more hardline immigration policies upon his return to the White House, including an expansion of his previous travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries and the revocation of student visas of “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”

International students generally have nonimmigrant visas that allow them to study in the US but don’t provide a legal pathway to stay in the country.

“It’s a scary time for international students,” said Pramath Pratap Misra, 23, a student from India who graduated from New York University this year with a bachelor’s degree in political science. NYU had the most international students in the US – more than 27,000 – during the last academic year.

On campuses from New York to California, students not only buckled down to take finals before winter break but some also braced for possible disruptions to their lives and the possibility of not being able to complete their studies. Some universities have urged students to put off or cut short travel plans outside the US before the inauguration.

Cornell University’s Office of Global Learning advised students who are traveling abroad to return before the January 21 start of the spring semester or to “communicate with an advisor about your travel plans and be prepared for delays.”

“A travel ban is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration,” the university warned students late last month. “The ban is likely to include citizens of the countries targeted in the first Trump administration: Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia. New countries could be added to this list, particularly China and India.”

At the University of Southern California, which had more than 17,000 international students during the last academic year, administrators urged foreign students in an email to be back in the US one week before Trump’s White House return, saying that “one or more executive orders impacting travel … and visa processing” may be issued. USC has the largest number of international students in California.

“While there’s no certainty such orders will be issued, the safest way to avoid any challenges is to be physically present in the U.S. before the Spring semester begins on January 13, 2025,” said the USC Office of International Service, according to a report in the student-led media site.

Additionally, Trump’s promise of “mass deportations” reverberates beyond critical industries such as agriculture, leisure and hospitality, construction and health care: It potentially complicates matters for some students regardless of their winter break travel plans.

The president-elect has at the same time promised to “automatically” give green cards to foreign nationals who graduate from US colleges, a proposal that — if pursued by Trump and passed by Congress — could pave the way for potentially millions of international students to become legal permanent residents.

Shortly after Trump made that pledge in June, however, a campaign spokesperson said that group would be limited to the “most skilled graduates” and screened to “exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges.” Public charges refers to those who rely on or seek public assistance. Trump hasn’t publicly mentioned the proposal since June, and it’s not clear how his new administration will approach the issue.

One day after the presidential election last month, UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy reminded students that the university “will not release immigration status or related information in confidential student records … without a judicial warrant, a subpoena, a court order, or as otherwise required by law.”

“The University also has a strict policy that generally prevents campus police from undertaking joint efforts with federal immigration enforcement or detaining people at the federal government’s request,” the center said.

‘We’re very uncertain about the future’

In October 2023, after the start of Israel-Hamas war sparked protests on US college campuses, Trump said at a campaign event that he would revoke student visas and deport “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners” enrolled in universities. He criticized pro-Palestinian protests and said he would send Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to what he called “pro-jihadist demonstrations.”

Trump also vowed to reinstate and expand his previous travel ban on people from predominantly Muslim countries – which limited travelers from Iran, Libya, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. The administration later extended the travel ban to include several African countries. President Joe Biden revoked the travel ban after he took office in 2021.

Trump promised to implement “strong ideological screening of all immigrants” and said the US would block “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs to get residency in our country.”

He has sought to distance himself from Project 2025 – the controversial blueprint for a reimagined federal government published by conservatives at the Heritage Foundation in anticipation of a second Trump term – which proposes the elimination of “sensitive zones” limiting federal immigration raids at places such as schools and college campuses. The plan was formulated by Trump allies.

“We’re very uncertain about the future,” said Gabrielle Balreira Fontenelle Mota, 21, who’s from Brazil and is a junior studying journalism and international relations at NYU. “I’m not from a Muslim country or from China, which are places that Trump usually criticizes. So I don’t feel as vulnerable as other international students. … What makes me a little bit more concerned is the ideological screenings that (Trump) said he will be implementing.”

NYU’s leaders offered reassurance in a post-election email last month, saying that “as a global institution, we believe that the cross-border mobility of our students and scholars is of critical importance.”

“We will be monitoring any immigration-related proposals, laws, and actions that could be of concern to our community,” the email said.

‘Budget time ahead of the semester start’

With the specter of restrictive immigration policies, other US universities – among them schools in New England – have offered resources and issued guidance.

The Office of Global Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has – “out of an abundance of caution” – urged all international students, scholars, faculty and staff to return to campus before day one of the new administration.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology urged students to avoid “making decisions based on social media and news reports or rumors.” Northeastern University, which enrolls more international students than any US college after NYU, recommended they return to campus by January 6 to “minimize potential disruption to your studies, work, or research.”

Harvard University’s International Office advised students and scholars to “budget time ahead of the semester start, prior to the January Martin Luther King holiday” to avoid disruptions or delays. Wesleyan University, in a letter to students traveling abroad, recommended they return by January 19 amid “uncertainties around President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for immigration-related policy.”

“The best way to anticipate or predict what will happen in the second Trump administration is to look at what happened in the first administration, and what we saw in the first Trump administration was an effort to restrict the entry of foreign born (students and workers) throughout every category,” Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research organization, said during a recent post-election briefing hosted by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

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