Amid mass deportation fears, US varsities urge international students to return from break before Trump swearing-in

Washington: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, and several other higher education institutions in the United States have advised their international students and employees to return from winter break before January 20, the day Donald Trump swears in as the 47th President of the United States.

The advisory comes in the wake of the talk about mass deportation of illegal immigrants in the US by the in-coming administration. There are estimated to be more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

A recent Open Doors 2024 Report on International Educational Exchange said that there are 1.1 million international students in the US.

India accounts for the largest number of them with 330,000. The Higher Ed Immigration Portal estimates that more than 400,000 undocumented students are at present enrolled in US higher education.

Those with a valid F-Visa, which is the case with over 330,000 international students from India, are unlikely to be impacted by any visa ban by the incoming Trump Administration.

The undocumented students are unlikely to travel overseas. However, given their experience of 2017, when the first Trump Administration on January 27 issued an executive order barring immigrants and non-immigrant travellers from seven majority Muslim nations from entering the US for 90 days.

The MIT urged the students to not pay heed to the rumours or speculations.

"It is still too early to determine what the immediate impacts may be on immigration and visa issues since the new Congress will be sworn in at the beginning of January, and our new President will be sworn in on January 20, 2025," David C Elwell, Associate Dean and Director, MIT International Students Office, said.

New Executive Orders that may impact travel and visa processing may be implemented on or after that date, he wrote.

"In addition, election transitions also impact staffing levels at US Embassies/Consulates abroad, which could impact entry visa processing times," Elwell said.

MIT said students who would need to apply for a new entry visa in order to return to the US must prepare for an extensive processing time and have a backup plan if they must travel abroad and wait for a new entry visa to be issued.

Any processing delays could impact students' ability to return to the US as planned, it noted. The Trump Transition Team did not respond to a PTI question on this issue.

"The Office of Global Affairs recommends that our UMass Amherst international community -- including all international students, scholars, faculty and staff under UMass immigration sponsorship -- strongly consider returning to the United States prior to the presidential inauguration day of January 20, 2025 if they are planning on traveling internationally during the winter holiday break," University of Massachusetts wrote in a post on Instagram.

The varsity said this was not a mandate from it but a recommendation based on previous experience with travel bans enacted in the first Trump Administration.

"... the Office of Global Affairs is making this advisory out of an abundance of caution to hopefully prevent any possible travel disruption to members of our international community," it said.

"We are not able to speculate on what a travel ban will look like if enacted, nor can we speculate on what particular countries or regions of the world may or may not be affected," the university added.

Several other universities have issued similar advisories.

Wesleyan University in Indiana urged international students to be on campus by January 19.

"The safest way to avoid difficulty re-entering the country is to be physically present in the US on January 19th and the days thereafter of the spring semester," wrote Wesleyan's Office of International Student Affairs in an email last Monday.

Yale University held a virtual session with its international students on this issue.

"We are following up our post-election discussion by hosting another session on how US Presidential Elections have shaped US immigration policy and what we are watching for in a second Trump presidency," it said.

The university has over 6,000 international students and scholars from more than 120 countries.