Educational institutions have historically served as bridges to the global community, built on the diverse perspectives and experiences that their domestic and international students offer. For some, college can be their first time meeting someone from another country and hearing an opinion different from their own.
Though under the current federal government, this relationship is at risk, with our University taking limited action to protect the diversity that makes this campus great. For now, the University is doing what it can to keep affected students informed. Whether that response is enough depends on how you perceive the University’s obligation to defend students — and whether concessions can be considered as protection.
Yet, for students such as Aarya Mehta, an international student from the United Arab Emirates and a senior in LAS, evaluating the University’s response to the federal government is more a product of individual safety than personal perceptions.
“I cannot feel safe in a university that refuses to actively condemn the fascist agendas of the current government,” Mehta said.
Let’s start from the beginning. In spring, the United States government terminated the records of more than 4,700 international students in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and revoked over 1,600 student visas, without prior notice or clear justification.
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After dozens of lawsuits challenging the unconstitutionality of these terminations, the government began restoring student records. The resulting impact on our University was discussed by Provost John Coleman on April 27 in an address to the University Senate announcing that “all 30 students … whose immigration statuses were previously deactivated have now been reactivated.”
Nevertheless, the attacks on international students continued.
Following those visa reinstatements, the federal government expanded the grounds for terminating a student’s legal status, proposed four-year limits for visa holders and redesigned the visa application process to screen students’ social media presence.
Along with these efforts, the Trump administration also offered universities preferential treatment in federal funding if their international student populations were limited to just 15%.
These federal actions are part of a broader goal by the Trump administration to terrify international students from studying in the U.S., executed through a climate of fear and procedural ambiguity.
Yet, some steps have been taken by administrators to support students by connecting them with legal resources. A list of resources has been compiled through a collaborative effort of policy analysts, attorneys and immigration experts. In particular, University websites refer students to The Immigration Project, a local nonprofit, for its low-cost legal services, along with several local immigration attorneys and organizations.
However, these recommendations only came after objections from some professors, including one professor in LAS, Damian Vergara Bracamontes, who criticized the University for referring students to costly Chicago-based attorneys without providing financial assistance.
“It’s not enough to just refer (students) out to Chicago, especially without having any kind of fund to be able to access these attorneys, which are extraordinarily expensive,” Bracamontes said. “You’re talking about at least $2,000 … It’s not enough to simply just give them a list of resources.”
Despite these concerns, the only University-provided relief appears to be pro bono legal services from the Immigration Law Clinic — part of the College of Law — which is available for students seeking an adjustment of status, asylum claim or other forms of relief.
While these resources matter, they fall critically short of what a university with an international student population of nearly 25% could be doing.
Lauren Aronson, the director of the Immigration Law Clinic and a professor in Law, confirmed a theory that the University could reasonably file a lawsuit against the federal government for its recent behavior, similar to Harvard University’s response. While the University has filed lawsuits against the federal government for research funding cuts, it has not taken similar action on behalf of its international students.
According to Aronson, such a lawsuit would be justified by the “definite harm done to our University, our University System and this campus.” It’s a reasonable ask: A university with enough resources to fight for research funding should be doing more for its students than signing letters and compiling resources.
This sentiment is shared by Mehta, who confirmed he’d “feel safer if the University put together a legal team to fight tooth and nail against the revocations of its students’ visas.”
Still, it’s a politically fraught position. The University may fear drawing further attention and putting its students at greater risk. This is especially true for politically active international students, who appear to be explicit targets of the Trump administration.
These political concerns are compounded by the knowledge that federal visibility may invite scrutiny, surveillance or even expulsion. Yet, while Mehta understands this as much as any other international student, he advocates for a different approach.
“I’ve been urged countless times, by family and friends alike, to ‘keep my head down and finish my degree,’” Mehta said. “I’d like to ask my fellow international students to do quite the opposite.”
Though, as of now, it appears the University has chosen to take a punitive response to campus protesters and allow the Trump administration to continue its attacks on students in an effort to deter direct federal pressures.
The situation was additionally confused following statements in May from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing that the administration would soon begin to “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students.” An announcement that was retracted by seemingly contradictory remarks made by Trump two weeks later in a Truth Social post, affirming that Chinese international students learning at U.S. colleges “HAS ALWAYS BEEN GOOD WITH ME!”
These statements came on the heels of a March letter from the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party to UI System President Tim Killeen, which requested extensive information on Chinese international students and suggested they posed a national security threat.
Ultimately, these demands from the federal government led to concessions from the University, with administrators terminating joint-degree agreements, institutional collaborations and training programs with Chinese universities.
Thus far, this has been the University’s approach to protecting students — conceding when possible and standing aside while students are threatened.
However, at its heart, higher education is an exchange of ideas, and it’s students that create an environment where that’s possible. Yet, these policies under the current federal government seek to destroy this environment — an environment that our University should protect, not actively weaken.
This University is made better because of our diverse international population. To every incoming international student: You belong, and I stand with you, alongside the many people on this campus who always will.
Grayson is a junior in LAS.
