Better return to US before Trump inaugural, foreign students advised
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE—A growing number of US colleges and universities are advising international students to return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated, amid concerns he might impose travel bans as he did during his first administration.
More than a dozen schools have issued advisories, even though Trump’s plans remain uncertain. At some schools, the spring semester begins before he takes office, so students may have to be back in class anyway.
But for anyone whose ability to stay in the United States depends on an academic visa, they say it’s best to reduce their risks and get back to campus before Jan. 20.
Here’s a look at what Trump has said and done and how schools and students are preparing for his second term:
Trump issued an executive order in January 2017 banning travel to the US by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries—Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Travelers from those nations were either barred from getting on their flights or detained at US airports after they landed. They included students and faculty as well as business people, tourists and visitors to friends and family.
Later he removed some countries but added others to the list—15 nations were affected at some point during his presidency.
Because of the ban, more than 40,000 people were ultimately refused visas, according to the US State Department. President Joe Biden rescinded the orders when he took office in 2021.
More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled in US colleges and universities during the 2023-2024 school year, according to Open Doors, a data project partially funded by the US State Department. Students from India and China accounted for more than half of all international students in the US, and about 43,800 come from the 15 countries affected by Trump’s travel restrictions.
‘Ideological screening’
Jacky Li, a third-year environmental studies major at University of California, Berkeley, will be traveling home to China on Dec. 21 and returning Jan. 16, 2025. Though he made his plans months before Berkeley officials sent the advisory, he said worry is growing among international students.
“There’s a fear that this kind of restriction will enlarge into a wider community, considering the geopolitical tensions nowadays around the world, so the fear is definitely there,” said Li, who urged Trump to support, rather than thwart, important academic research.
“If the US is really a champion of academic freedom, what you should do is not restrict this kind of communications between different countries of the world,” he said.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to questions on the topic. But in the past he said he would revive the travel ban and expand it, pledging new “ideological screening” for non-US citizens to bar “dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots and maniacs.”
“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza, Syria, Somalia, Yemen or Libya or anywhere else that threatens our security,” Trump said at an October 2023 campaign event in Iowa.
Possible delays
He also vowed to “revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners at our colleges and universities” in response to campus protests.
School officials have also advised international students heading home for winter break to prepare for possible delays at immigration control.
The list includes Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Brown, Boston schools such as Northeastern University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other schools around the country, from Johns Hopkins University to the University of Southern California. Some offer classes that begin the day after Inauguration Day.
Cornell University told its students that a travel ban involving the countries Trump previously targeted “is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration,” and that new countries could be added to the list—particularly China and India.
Other schools didn’t go so far as to say a ban is likely but instead advised students to plan ahead and prepare for delays.
