“It’s scary get up every morning and see how more students have revoked their visa, “he explains Kabirrecently graduated who prefers not to reveal its real name, university, or country of origin. “Put that I am from Southeast Asia,” he asks for this newspaper. Donald Trump He has retired Visa to more than 1,000 international students from more than 180 universities in just two monthsaccording to the centers themselves. From one day to another, they have been found in an irregular situation, without explanation, and Forced to return to your country, be it European or one at war. What began as reprisals against the leaders of the proportions has become an indiscriminate attack, even beyond previous persecutions against citizens of Muslim countries in Trump’s first mandate. The country that for decades attracted the brightest students, with the best research departments and the highest budgets, Lose now money and human capital. No foreigner is safe.
From Ask the teacher if you can deliver the unpleasant class work until give up being in the editorial team of the most prestigious university magazinesare some of the ways in which foreigners try to minimize their risk factors and protect themselves from the threat of expulsion from the country. The newspaper has spoken with dozens of foreign university students in the US And newly graduated young people – they can have stayed between one and three years working on their specialization – who have told their experiences on anonymity, in order to know what are the new dynamics of the Trump administration and how they are impacting their day to day.
Self -censorship
“All who They wrote in university newspapers about protestswhether current articles or academics, they are asking Remove your signature or directly that Delete the publication“Julia, a Spanish student in New York City, explains even those who do not write but exercise different roles in the editorial team, have seen their revoked visa. Fear extends in all disciplines of science and humanities, with topics of diversity, gender or climate in the spotlight.” Within the academic world it is already assuming that not to run the risk that an article that can compromise you can finish online, It is better to deliver the work with a pseudonym or acronym“He says.
Psychosis unleashed when a Turkish student at the University of Tuffs, in the Boston area, was arrested by incognito agents who took it in a vehicle without identifying police signals. In the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Aaronwho was involved in the Jewish student group for peace, admits that he hit him. “We protested because we did not want the resources, intelligence and time of our university to invest in developing weapons for war,” he says. “Now we are all having problems. Universities close research groups for cuts and private companies does not want to hire you in case they throw you out of the country In the middle of your practices, “Aaron explains.”We came here to train in the best programs of public policies and develop our own ideas about the world, “explains the young man.” And, on the other hand, we are seeing how penalizes expressing opinions that are not aligned with the administration“, he points out.
Unjustified withholdings
Recently, A group of several German students from MIT spent the night retained in an airport waiting room Waiting for perfectly valid visas to check and let them return to their homes in Boston. Often, Students only find out that their immigration situation is no longer legal in meetings with order forcessuch as airport passport control. With this new strategy, the administration Trump is jumping to universitywhich is the student’s endorsement in the country, by inviting him to the US with the admission to one of his programs.
When the individual finds out his change of status, he must contact his university to report it but seeks in the institution an aid that the institution does not provide. Because they are collapsed by the number of casesand because their Legal teams advise them to get involved. This is reflected in the communications of universities with their students, who went from sending calls to calm to asking that no one leaves the US because they cannot guarantee that they can re -enter In the country, according to the newspaper he has been able to review e-mails of universities throughout the country.
“I am worried. We do not know what the Administration now considers a penalized crime with deportation. It seems that they are taking any opportunity to punish international students or color immigrants like me, especially Muslims, “he explains Hasanalso from Southeast Asia, from the capital, Washington DC.
Cover your face
Kabir recently went to one of those protests that put the students in the spotlight. Not as a manifestant, but as a journalist of a local newspaper for which he works now, in a small population of California that prefers not to reveal. “I started asking if I should cover my face not to be mistakenly identified as another manifestor in any image that will be taken. I felt a lot of anxiety, I just wanted to leave as soon as possible, “he recalls.
Like Kabir, many young people It is settled between self -censorship and the fear of being thrown out Without finishing a study program for which some have borrowed and others have obtained the most competitive scholarships in the world. And, in the middle of this dilemma, a feeling of how absurd it has been to the country that promised the best education in the world. “I never thought my job could put me in such problems in the US “regrets.
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