US universities issue advisories over potential Trump travel ban

Source: The Guardian

Fri 20 Dec 2024 11.20 EST
Last modified on Fri 20 Dec 2024 12.43 EST


US colleges and universities are issuing warnings to their international students to return to campus before Donald Trump assumes office as president in preparation for a repeat of potential travel bans seen during his first term. More than a dozen US schools have issued advisories. Some students must be back soon anyway since their spring semester begins before the president-elect takes office, but others are warning that students who depend on an academic visa may be at risk and should return to campus before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Although Trump’s plans for any travel bans remain unclear, the president-elect has threatened to invoke a travel ban as he did via executive order during his first term, which affected those from predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. This included students and faculty of higher education institutions. More than 40,000 people were refused visas as a result of the ban, according to the US state department.

The list of schools 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 13 nations 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. It advised students, faculty and staff from those countries to return to campus before the semester starts on 21 January.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/trump-2025-travel-ban-universities