Expressing concern over Donald Trump’s possible mass deportation plans, universities in the USA have e-mailed international students and staff members where they have asked them to return to campus before the President-elect takes office in January.
“All international students are worried right now,” University of Colorado Denver professor Chloe East told the BBC.
During his election campaign, Republican Trump had pledged to enact the largest deportation operation in the history of the country.
Quoting Higher Ed Immigration Portal data, over 400,000 undocumented students are currently enrolled in US higher education.
“Students are incredibly overwhelmed and stressed out right now as a result of the uncertainty around immigration,” Prof East told the BBC.
“A lot of students have concerns about their visas and whether they’ll be allowed to continue their education,” the professor said.
The University of Massachusetts in November issued a travel advisory to all international students and faculty in which it urged students and faculty members to strongly consider returning to the United States prior to the presidential inauguration day of January 20, 2025 if they are planning on travelling internationally during the winter holiday break.
“However, given that a new presidential administration can enact new policies on their first day in office (January 20), and based on previous experience with travel bans that were enacted in the first Trump Administration in 2017, the Office of Global Affairs is making this advisory out of an abundance of caution to hopefully prevent any possible travel disruption to members of our international community,” the travel advisory had said.
During his previous tenure, Trump had signed an executive order on his first week in the White House which banned nationals from various countries, mostly from Muslim nations and those from North Korea and Venezuela, from visiting the USA.
According to media reports, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Wesleyan University have issued travel advisories where they have urged students and staff to return to the US before the inauguration day.
Aoi Maeda, an international student from Japan studying at Earlham College in Indiana, has expressed concern about her academic future.
“I am planning to graduate in May 2026, but now that the administration is going to be a little bit more dangerous, I’m less hopeful about things going well,” she told BBC.
