The Trump administration announced sweeping international student policy changes last week that could affect roughly 12 percent of Boston College’s student body, leaving many international students reeling and alarmed about their academic futures in the United States.
“I am terrified about my future here in the United States,” an international student from Shanghai wrote in a statement to The Heights on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the federal government. “Policies affecting international students and immigrants have been so sweeping in recent months that I’m unsure how I—or anyone, for that matter—can feel secure in the United States, knowing our futures rest on a house of cards.”
Last Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a press release that the Department of Homeland Security would begin “aggressively” revoking visas for Chinese students studying at U.S. institutions and would move to tighten visa criteria for students applying from both China and Hong Kong.
The move could jeopardize the legal status of as many as 675 BC students—though that figure includes recent graduates and not students enrolled in the Class of 2029—as well as more than 275,000 Chinese international students nationwide.
“The very aggressive steps that the current administration has taken to limit and push back on foreign admission has certainly been extremely surprising to see, and—for me at least—was totally unforeseen,” said an international student from Beijing. “It’s certainly made me rethink some of my future options.”
A day prior to Rubio’s announcement, the Trump administration ordered all U.S. embassies and consulates to indefinitely pause the scheduling of interviews for student visa applicants while it considered and formulated an expansion of social media screening and vetting policies.
On June 2, the University’s Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS) issued an immigration alert with a synopsis of the policy changes and advised students to continue working with OISS and the Office of Undergraduate Admission to submit required documents.
The alert stopped short of addressing concerns specific to international students from China or Hong Kong, and stated only that the Department of State had not issued any further clarification on the policy’s implementation.
“I appreciated receiving communication from BC about the visa changes,” an international student from Hong Kong wrote in a statement to The Heights. “But I’m not sure it offered much reassurance. If anything, I felt like BC downplayed the situation. To me, Rubio’s statement made it clear the administration will aggressively pursue visa revocations like mine, but BC framed it as ‘possible visa revocations’—it’s like we read two entirely different statements.”
In its alert, the OISS said it had learned that additional guidance on the visa interview pause was expected soon. At a June 3 press conference, a state department spokesperson confirmed that an update was coming “before the end of the week.”
The OISS did not respond to a request for comment from The Heights.
International students admitted to BC, like all others entering the U.S. for academic study, must obtain an F-1 visa through an in-person interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate in their home country. These visas can range in duration from 12 to 60 months.
Since visa interviews are a mandatory part of that process, the scheduling freeze could affect both current international students and admits of the Class of 2029. Several international students interviewed by The Heights said they were still in the process of scheduling interviews when the freeze was announced.
In addition to F-1 visas, the directive also affects J-1 visas for scholars and exchange visitors, as well as M-1 visas for vocational training programs.
The uncertainty has already prompted some students to begin exploring contingency plans in case they are unable to return to the U.S. or are forced to leave in the middle of their studies.
“I had previously planned to stay long term in the U.S., but now I will have to monitor the political climate very closely to determine whether this is still the best option,” the international student from Beijing expressed. “While I would likely remain at BC unless forced to leave the nation or institution, the current situation has forced me to consider alternative educational options, such as in Canada and Hong Kong.”
One student, who has been unable to renew their F-1 visa because of the scheduling freeze, said they have already begun looking at academic institutions in other countries and are uncertain whether they will return to BC in the fall.
“As of now, I can’t return to the U.S. or to BC this fall,” the student said. “My parents have helped me look for other options to study abroad because we’re so unsure what’s going to happen. It’s all so up in the air. I’m not even sure I’d even want to come back to the States should the policies reverse.”
For some, the policies have led to an increase in self-censorship in their day-to-day lives.
“Trump’s actions have made me and a lot of my friends fearful of posting on social media and talking to others about topics that matter to us, so we’ve had to stop,” said the international student from Hong Kong. “I mean, just recently, a student at Tufts was arrested just for being critical of Israel in her school’s newspaper. How am I supposed to speak freely when the risk of being deported is always there? ICE is being used by Trump to silence people like the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and MSS in China.”
Though constitutional protections such as free speech and due process have long been determined by the Supreme Court to apply to non-citizens and international students in the U.S., some students said that, in practice, those rights feel increasingly tenuous.
“In theory, the Constitution protects me, protects international students, and protects people that are on American soil, but in practice, it’s not the case,” a student said. “For me, searching through my conversations and my social media, it is an invasion of my privacy, which I feel should be protected.”
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