International students are urged by US universities to return from winter vacation by January 20

International students and staff at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and a number of other American universities have been urged to return from winter vacation before January 20, the day Donald Trump takes office as the country's 47th president. The warning follows discussions about the incoming administration's huge deportations of illegal immigrants in the United States. Over 11 million illegal immigrants are thought to be in the nation. There are 1.1 million international students in the United States, according to the most recent Open Doors 2024 Report on International Educational Exchange. With 330,000, India is home to the greatest number of them. Over 400,000 undocumented students are currently enrolled in US higher education, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. It seems unlikely that any visa suspension by the incoming Trump Administration will affect those who have a valid F-Visa, which is the situation for more than 330,000 international students from India. However, considering their experience in 2017, when the first Trump Administration issued an executive order on January 27 that prohibited immigrants and non-immigrant travelers from seven mainly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days, it seems unlikely that the illegal students will travel abroad. The students were advised by MIT not to believe any rumors or conjectures. "It is still too early to determine what the immediate impacts may be on immigration and visa issues since the new Congress will be sworn in at the beginning of January, and our new President will be sworn in on January 20, 2025," David C Elwell, Associate Dean and Director, MIT International Students Office, said. He wrote that more Executive Orders could be issued on or after that date that could affect travel and visa procedures. "In addition, election transitions also impact staffing levels at US Embassies/Consulates abroad, which could impact entry visa processing times," Elwell said. According to MIT, students who would have to apply for a new entrance visa in order to return to the US should be ready for a lengthy processing period and have a contingency plan in case they had to leave the country while they wait for the new entry visa to be granted. It stated that any delays in processing could affect students' ability to make their scheduled return to the United States. A PTI inquiry about this matter received no response from the Trump Transition Team. "The Office of Global Affairs recommends that our UMass Amherst international community -- including all international students, scholars, faculty and staff under UMass immigration sponsorship -- strongly consider returning to the United States prior to the presidential inauguration day of January 20, 2025 if they are planning on traveling internationally during the winter holiday break," University of Massachusetts wrote in a post on Instagram. The university stated that this was a proposal based on prior experience with travel bans implemented during the first Trump Administration, not a mandate. "... 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," it said. "We are not able to speculate on what a travel ban will look like if enacted, nor can we speculate on what particular countries or regions of the world may or may not be affected," the university added. Similar cautions have been released by a number of other colleges. International students were asked to arrive on campus by January 19 at Wesleyan University in Indiana. "The safest way to avoid difficulty re-entering the country is to be physically present in the US on January 19th and the days thereafter of the spring semester," wrote Wesleyan's Office of International Student Affairs in an email last Monday. On this topic, Yale University convened a virtual meeting with its international students. "We are following up our post-election discussion by hosting another session on how US Presidential Elections have shaped US immigration policy and what we are watching for in a second Trump presidency," it said. More than 120 countries are represented among the university's more than 6,000 international scholars and students.

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