Tracey Pauline Albert, a Columbia University master’s student who is originally from India, made sure to take no chances with her return arrangements as she got ready to depart for winter vacation. Her return travel to the United States was meticulously planned to arrive well in advance of January 20.
A few American colleges and institutions, like Columbia, have been warning their international student groups to get back to campus early in order to prevent travel delays. Certain educational institutions are explicitly recommending that students arrive before to the January 20 inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.
Several universities have recommended worried students to return to campus early, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Cornell University, and the University of Southern California.
Albert, who is pursuing a Master of Public Administration, told NBC News via email that there is a noticeable feeling of unease among foreigners due to the uncertainty around immigration laws. Small changes are doable, such as making sure one returns to the United States before to important events like January 20th. But the question of what follows still stands.
The prospect of Trump’s second term has rekindled concerns about travel restrictions and more stringent immigration laws for students like Albert, who must carefully negotiate the challenges of living and studying in the United States.
Schools claim they are making an effort to assist, offering visa holders resources and offering to assist with mobilization in case of an emergency.
The Office of Global Affairs is issuing this warning out of extreme caution, based on prior experience with travel bans implemented during the first Trump Administration, a University of Massachusetts Amherst office stated on Instagram. We are not allowed to make assumptions about the specific nations or areas of the world that might or might not be impacted, or about how a travel restriction might appear if it is implemented.
A Harvard comment stated that it is closely following immigration policy, although it did not specifically mention the inauguration. International students were urged to arrive well in advance of the semester’s start.
Cornell urged students to always have their documents with them when traveling, citing Trump’s Muslim travel ban, which was initially implemented January 2017, only days after he took office. Make sure they are current, and bring extra documents that show why you are at Cornell, the university wrote.
Lingering Muslim ban-driven fears
A week into his first term, Trump issued his first executive order, which prohibited all travel for ninety days from seven nations with a majority of Muslims. Some staff and students who were out of town were either held at the airport or left stranded.
According to Gaurav Khanna, an associate professor of economics and immigration specialist at the University of California, San Diego, the majority of the students were effectively prevented from boarding the aircraft. Many students were indeed placed in detention. For example, some were unable to board the final leg if they were transiting through Canada.
Despite being declared unlawful, the Supreme Court reinstated the prohibition in 2018. When Joe Biden became president in 2021, he revoked it. Students are worried about Trump’s provocative remarks about deporting protesters on college campuses, but it’s uncertain if he will reinstate the ban.
At a speech earlier this year in New Jersey, Trump declared, “When I am president, we will not allow our colleges to be taken over by violent radicals.” We will deport you right away if you come from another nation and attempt to spread anti-Semitism, jihadism, or anti-Americanism on our schools.
Even though China and India account for the majority of overseas students studying in the United States, experts warn that the mere threat of possible prohibitions may deter university enrollment. This post-Covid anxiety is particularly prevalent among Chinese students, whose enrollment in American schools has declined.
There is this anxiety because of the tensions with China and the big number of Chinese students, Khanna said. That could harm universities in general as well as students specifically. Even if the administration does nothing in the near future, that concern may persist for some time and may therefore negatively impact enrollment.
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