Many college students are wrapping up final exams this week and getting ready to leave campus for winter vacation. At UMass Amherst, that's a nearly six-week break.
"I'm going back home," said a second-year PhD student from China.
Some colleges, including UMass, are recommending international students head back to the U.S. by January 20, when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. They are worried about a repeat of travel restrictions Trump imposed at the start of his first term.
The student from China is not dismissing that advice, but she's not following it either. Hoping for the best, she plans to stay in China until after the inauguration. Even though many of her friends rebooked their flights, she is not returning until February.
"I want to stay in China as long as I can," she said, adding that the flight takes 17 hours and it would be too expensive to change her ticket.
The student asked us not to use her name because she feared speaking publicly could jeopardize her student visa.
UMass Amherst has 1,600 international undergraduate students and almost 4,000 graduate students.
A Déjà vu moment
Just the possibility of a travel restriction is creating a Déjà vu moment for Musbah Shaheen, an assistant professor in the College of Education at UMass.
"The feelings of 'don't leave, don't move, don't do anything, just stay put,' are very familiar," Shaheen said.
Shaheen is from Syria and was a senior at Vanderbilt University when Trump was first elected.
In 2017, when Trump took office, he signed an executive order restricting travel to the U.S. from seven majority-Muslim countries, including Syria.
"It made it essentially impossible for me to leave after my degree because I knew I couldn't come back for the master's," Shaheen said.
A few years later, Shaheen did get his master's in the U.S. — and then a doctorate. Now he is watching young international students struggle with their decision to stay in the U.S. over break.
"You're not just away," he said. "You're oceans away from what you know, and you're homesick, and you were looking forward to going back for a break time — and that is not going to happen."
At nearby Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, about a quarter of the students are from outside the United States, said Danielle Holley, the college's president.
The school has advised anyone who is not an American passport holder to be back in the U.S. well before the inauguration, she said.
"Just to ensure that they don't have any problem reentering," Holley said.
UMass Amherst was among the schools to issue a travel advisory for international students shortly after the election.
"[B]ased on previous experience with travel bans that were enacted in the first Trump Administration in 2017, 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," the statement read.
The school's Office of Global Affairs didn't respond to multiples interview requests. A university spokesperson said officials didn't have anything to add beyond the advisory.
In November, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reminded students that federal transitions can impact staffing levels at American embassies and consulates abroad, increasing wait times for visa assistance.
Boston University officials said they're not speculating on whether the Trump administration will enact a travel ban, but they are asking their international students to consider the risks.
Be ready for anything
More than a million international students and scholars are studying and doing research in the U.S., with more than half from China or India.
School administrators, students and researchers just don't know what's going to happen, said immigration attorney Dan Berger.
"We recommend buying travel insurance, not making non-refundable deposits for travel, because there is uncertainty about what will happen next year and what the details will be," said Berger, who works with colleges around New England.
Berger said he is also trying to help universities understand that students need more flexibility on campus — from housing to the timing of their enrollment.
"If I'm an international student, I would like the school to be as flexible as possible with the understanding that I may not be able to go at the last minute if the immigration situation is not good," Berger said.
Under the Biden administration, some students from Russia, China and Iran have experienced delays coming into the U.S., Berger said.
In an email, U.S. Customs and Border Protection didn't confirm or refute Berger's observations.
“All international travelers attempting to enter the United States, including all U.S. citizens, are subject to examination,” a spokesperson wrote in an email.
In the first Trump administration, no one even saw the travel restrictions coming, Berger said. Students and scholars with visas just had to wait out the delays. This time, he said, they have to be ready for anything.
Beyond winter break
If travel restrictions are imposed again, Shaheen — the UMass professor — said students will also have to think hard about whether to leave for summer break. Will they be able to return in the fall?
"We talk a lot about the struggles of the international student," Shaheen said. "We don't often talk about the assets that they bring to our community."
Students and researchers are resilient, Shaheen said, and with the proper support, they will manage. But, he said, it is a scary time.
Karen Brown contributed.
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