US colleges warn foreign students about Trump's crackdown on immigration

Amid worries over President-elect Donald Trump's plans for mass deportations, US universities have been sending emails to international staff and students urging them to return to campus before he takes office in January. "All international students are worried right now," University of Colorado Denver professor Chloe East told the BBC. Trump, a Republican, has promised to employ the US military to assist in the biggest deportation effort in history. The Higher Ed Immigration Portal reports that over 400,000 students in the United States are enrolled in higher education without proper documentation. According to officials in Trump's upcoming government, large detention centers for undocumented immigrants on the deportation list will be constructed. Tom Homan, his new border tsar, has stated that the expulsion of violent criminals and national security dangers will be given priority. However, that hasn't made higher education any less concerned. "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." Before Trump took office on January 20, the University of Massachusetts urged its faculty and international students to "strongly consider" coming back to campus after winter break in a November travel advisory. "Based on previous experience with travel bans that were enacted in the first Trump Administration in 2016, the Office of Global Affairs is making this advisory out of an abundance of caution," the college said. During his first week in the White House in 2017, Trump issued an executive order prohibiting travel to the United States by citizens of North Korea, Venezuela, and several other primarily Muslim countries. Additionally, he suggested various restrictions on student visas during his first term as president. Additionally, travel advisories have been issued by Wesleyan University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, advising staff and students to return to the United States prior to the day of the inauguration. According to the student publication, Yale University's Office of International Students and Scholars held a webinar this month to address students' worries about possible changes to immigration laws. Students who are foreign-born and covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy fall under this category. The Obama-era program, which protected more than half a million migrants who entered the US as children from deportation, has been targeted by Trump. According to Prof. East, Asian students, especially those from China, are experiencing "uncertainty" over US-China ties under Trump. Among those worried about her academic future is Aoi Maeda, a Japanese international student attending Earlham College in Indiana. "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 said. "[Trump] claims that he is only interested in keeping illegal immigrants out of the country, but he also kind of tries to move the goal post a lot of times," Maeda continued. "I feel like us international students with a visa might get affected, and it'll become easier to deport us."

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