Momodou Taal, an international student at Cornell University, initiated legal action against the Trump Administration. However, he was absent from his court hearing on March 25 in Syracuse, N.Y. A day prior to filing the lawsuit, which sought an injunction against two of President Donald Trump’s executive orders for alleged violations of speech and due process rights, the U.S. government revoked Taal’s student visa and soon after, .
As a professor residing and working in Syracuse, I attended the hearing. The courtroom was filled with members of the public. Taal’s absence served as a stark reminder of the difficult situation faced by international students due to Trump’s immigration policies. Attending the hearing could have resulted in Taal’s immediate arrest and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The hearing was intended, in part, to address Taal’s request for a temporary restraining order against his arrest and deportation, which the court ultimately denied. He left the country on his own a few days later.
Taal is among a number of international students who have been critical of the U.S. government and Israel while studying in the U.S., and who have subsequently had their ability to remain in the country put at risk. , a Fulbright scholar from India and international student at Columbia University, chose to self-deport to avoid being detained after her visa was canceled. Furthermore, , a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, was apprehended on the street by masked agents. These are just a couple of the cases that have come to light. Numerous reports indicate that ICE agents are and detaining international students.
On March 27, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that approximately 300 international students have already had their visas revoked this year, becoming casualties of attacks on political dissent, non-citizens, and higher education. In the weeks that followed, it was revealed that the Trump Administration had terminated the immigration records of about 4,700 international students. Subsequently, the Trump Administration reversed their policy last week, with the Department of Justice announcing that ICE would reinstate these immigration records. However, many of the impacted students still face an uncertain future.
Over international students are currently enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. This follows a recent increase resulting from an intentional effort—in higher education terms—to “” our campuses. This trend is part of the global commodification of higher education, with universities nationwide relying significantly on the enrollment, revenue, and labor provided by international students. Their increasing presence translates to for the U.S. economy.
However, the importance of international students extends beyond their economic contributions. Universities frequently highlight increased international student enrollment as part of their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Nevertheless, the recent arrests of international students send a new message from our nation’s leaders: their pursuit of higher education in the U.S. is solely an economic transaction, and as foreign students, they are not welcome to engage in political criticism.
U.S. history tells a different story. Students from abroad have long been important to the culture of American campuses. In my own research, I have written about how participated in anti-colonial movements that originated in the U.S. in the early 20th century. During the 1960s and 1970s, students from , , and , along with other international students, joined the international social movements that swept across American campuses to protest U.S.-led wars, combat racism, and challenge oppressive governments. In these historical moments, students from around the world stood with American students, risking political repression to provide moral clarity to our collective conscience and move us toward a more equitable global society. International students participating in student-led demonstrations against the killing of Palestinians in Gaza continued this tradition of free speech and protest.
However, this is not the first time that foreign students have faced national scrutiny. For example, after the 9/11 attacks, international students were treated as a ; as a result, several surveillance measures were implemented, including the permanent establishment of a mandatory monitoring system called the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or “,” which requires higher education institutions to track and report information on their international students to the Department of Homeland Security.
Today, the renewed targeting of international students centers on a crackdown on political protest on campuses—a crackdown that began and has intensified under the Trump administration. The fact that students have been suggests insufficient institutional resistance to the erosion of fundamental principles essential for a healthy academic environment: academic freedom, freedom of speech, and the right to dissent. It also communicates to the very students we attract from abroad for economic and marketing purposes that their membership in U.S. university life is conditional upon their political silence.
However, international students are our students, and remaining complacent while their perspectives are brutally suppressed and they are removed from our campuses—which should be safe and nurturing spaces for intellectual exchange and political criticism—harms us all. Targeting international students threatens us all by dictating the terms under which anyone can claim access to institutional spaces and cultures of higher learning in the U.S. Indeed, the cost of silencing dissenting voices will not be borne by international students alone.
