The College of Massachusetts Amherst has issued a travel warning to its worldwide college students and school, urging them to “strongly take into account” returning to the U.S. earlier than the president’s inauguration on Jan. 20 in the event that they plan to go overseas throughout winter break.
In a press release launched Friday by the college’s Workplace of World Affairs, the college, which has greater than 5,000 worldwide college students, stated it was pushing for consideration “out of an abundance of warning” due to previous journey bans ordered by a former president Donald Trumpwho will resume workplace in January.
“Given {that a} new presidential administration could introduce new insurance policies on its first day in workplace (Jan. 20) and based mostly on earlier expertise with journey bans that have been enacted within the first Trump administration in 2016, the Workplace on World Affairs is making this advisory out of an abundance of warning to hopefully forestall doable journey disruption for members of our worldwide neighborhood,” the UMass workplace stated. “We can’t speculate on what the journey ban will seem like whether it is applied, nor can we speculate on which particular international locations or areas of the world could or will not be affected.”
A consultant for the college, whose spring semester begins Jan. 30, supplied no additional touch upon the matter when contacted by HuffPost on Wednesday.
UMass Amherst is not the one faculty expressing concern, nevertheless.
MIT issued a similar travel tips to its worldwide college students after Trump’s re-election, stressing that any new government order he points may have an effect on journey and visa processing instances.
This might lead to some worldwide college students having to journey overseas to attend for a brand new entry visa earlier than they will return, the college’s Workplace of Worldwide College students stated.
An MIT consultant advised HuffPost on Wednesday that it’s working to maintain its neighborhood knowledgeable of any official developments. They additional suggested college students to “depend on official sources of data to observe developments”.
John Graeme by way of Getty Photographs
In his first administration, Trump issued a lot of anti-immigration journey bans and insurance policies that negatively impacted worldwide college students.
Its insurance policies embrace journey bans in almost a dozen international locations, first in 2017 which ended up banning virtually all vacationers from 5 predominantly Muslim international locations, in addition to North Korea and Venezuela. Three years later, in 2020 he extended this prohibition so it severely restricted immigrant visas for folks from six different international locations with vital Muslim populations.
Though his journey ban shouldn’t be supposed for scholar visas, worldwide college students are nonetheless reporting journey points as they attempt to return to the U.S. A number of doctoral college students and undergraduates from the affected international locations stated NPR in 2017 to be detained at airports or despatched again to their residence nation due to the ban, together with an Iranian man who had a US inexperienced card.
Trump additionally tried unsuccessfully to ban worldwide college students from residing within the US in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic if their courses have been switched completely on-line. This rule that was eventually cancelled after eight federal lawsuits and opposition from a whole lot of universities, it could have required college students already within the US to both switch faculties or go away the nation voluntarily.
Whereas it is not but clear what motion the subsequent Trump administration would possibly take, earlier this yr he promised to deport worldwide college students caught demonstrating within the US
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“One factor I do is that any scholar who protests, I throw them in another country. You realize there are numerous worldwide college students. As quickly as they hear that, they will behave themselves,” Trump advised donors at a closed-door occasion in Could, in keeping with The Washington Post.
He made comparable feedback about anti-Israel protesters in the course of the election rally the identical month, saying he would “instantly deport them.”
Final yr, the U.S. noticed a file variety of worldwide college students in attendance, greater than 1.1 million, with whole enrollment up 7 %, in keeping with National Center for Education Statistics.
Nearly all of college students got here from India (29 %) and China (25 %), and most have been enrolled at New York College, Northeastern College, Columbia College and Arizona State College, in keeping with the middle’s findings.
Representatives of these 4 faculties didn’t instantly reply to HuffPost’s requests for remark in regards to the potential steering supplied to worldwide college students.
