More than 500 foreign students have had their US visas revoked in recent weeks, as Donald Trump’s administration doubles down on its crackdown on universities.
Nafsa, a network of universities and individuals engaged in international education and exchanges, told the Financial Times on Tuesday it had identified 500 visa revocations by compiling reports from higher education institutions across the US.
“This is uncharted territory on so many levels,” Fanta Aw, chief executive of Nafsa said. “It’s at an unprecedented level and it’s quite concerning because there is a lack of clarity which is creating anxiety.”
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State are implementing a wave of actions against university students across the country. Institutions are often unaware that their students have been targeted so cannot easily track their cases or offer support.
The state department’s visa revocations require students to leave the US and reapply for visas after fresh scrutiny. Separately, the homeland security department has triggered “status termination”, Aw said. In both cases, she added, the processes for appeal were unclear.
“There will be a tsunami of legal cases coming,” she warned.
Multiple reports have arisen of foreign students and university employees being taken to detention centres and subsequently facing deportation.
Several universities have issued warnings to students and faculty against travelling abroad for fear of arbitrary questioning or detention on returning to the US.
Aw said reports of visa revocations had spiralled from students at elite universities — including Stanford, Harvard and Columbia — to a far wider range of higher education institutions across the country. They targeted many different nationalities for a variety of reasons, including for traffic violations.
Since Trump’s election, a growing number of US-based faculty have sought jobs elsewhere and increasing numbers of high school and college students are applying to universities abroad.
The Central European University in Vienna on Tuesday said US applicants for its programmes in the upcoming academic year had jumped one-quarter, while the University of Toronto reported a “meaningful” rise compared to past years.
On Monday, 16 associations of US universities called for a briefing from the homeland security and state departments, after uncoordinated orders from the authorities requested students to “self-deport”.
The group said the orders contained “no additional information about how to appeal this decision or verification to ensure that mistakes are not being made in identifying these individuals”.
The association warned of the implications for the country given the 1mn international students attending US colleges and universities, who contributed an estimated $43.8bn to the economy, created 375,000 domestic jobs and contributed “to institutions’ intellectual vibrancy and the global literacy of domestic students”.
The homeland security department did not reply to a request to comment.