College communities in western Massachusetts and around the U.S. have been on edge for weeks, as federal immigration officials, without any warning, are revoking international student visas.
In less than a week's time, more than a dozen University of Massachusetts Amherst students who were preparing for careers in science, the humanities and other fields, saw their goals take a sudden turn when their legal status to live and study in the U.S. disappeared.
That's within the same time frame that the Trump administration is threatening to cut billions in federal research money over alleged antisemitism, or if schools don't follow federal guidelines on “diversity equity and inclusion" programs.
"It's not just how funding might be pulled, there is this larger fear. There's this larger sense of chaos on campus," said a UMass Amherst graduate student who asked not to be identified for safety reasons.
The PhD candidate has been studying in the U.S. for seven years, working on her research and teaching undergraduates.
"We are constantly checking the news," she said, "and most of us do not know if we'll still have a visa when we wake up tomorrow morning."
At a department meeting she attended on the day she spoke to NEPM, the student said she and others talked about putting a list together of emergency contacts, names of people who might be able to help just in case something happens.
"Our graduate program director was saying we should avoid walking alone. We should stay with our community, constantly be in touch with faculty members, constantly stay in touch with friends who are citizens," she said.
The first week of April
The sudden visa terminations of UMass Amherst students began April 4. Late on a Friday, the university announced five students had their visas revoked.
As the days went by, it was another student, then news of a few more.
As of April 10, 13 students have been told by federal immigration officials they no longer have the legal status to stay in the U.S.
Ken Reade, the executive director of Visa Services at UMass Amherst’s Office of Global Affairs, said all of the students have sought legal counsel.
"I think they're weighing their options, " Reade said. "We do know that some of the students have indeed departed the U.S. already."
To Reade, there doesn't seem to be a pattern why these particular UMass Amherst students had their visas terminated.
The countries they come from were not on the first Trump administration's travel ban, Reade said, and those countries are represented by many students on campus.
"None of these terminations have seemingly anything to do whatsoever with any past activities," Reade said.
Notably, that "activity" includes a high profile campus protest in May 2024 when police arrested more than 130 people.
Many not connected to campus Gaza-related activity
Visa cancellations are coming in trends, said Northampton, Mass., based immigration attorney Dan Berger.
"Just about two weeks ago was the pattern of some very small number of students being detained, arrested and put into immigration court based on Gaza-related protests," Berger said.
That includes among others, the Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil who holds a Green Card and was detained in New York City by U.S. immigration officials, and the arrest and detainment in Somerville, Mass., of Tufts University Turkish doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk.
Then starting about a week ago Berger said, "we saw a different pattern, which is termination of student visa status in a database called SEVIS."
SEVIS is the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, created after the of Sept. 11, 2001 attacks to keep track of international students and other visitors to the U.S.
To find any red flags on students who want to study in the U.S., the federal government uses algorithms, Berger said.
Now something else is going on.
"What seems to be happening now is that the step is being skipped with a human being — an actual officer looking at these. Rather, it is just going straight to termination," Berger said.
An arrest, a misdemeanor or even charges that have been dismissed could result in a foreign visa cancellation and removal from SEVIS.
"I had literally two calls over the weekend from female students — two different schools, two different cities — who had been victims of domestic violence," Berger said, "and their abuser had filed cross charges against them."
The cross charges were dismissed, Berger said, but that appears to be what led to the termination of the students’ visas.
An alert through email, but only to students
Once ICE revokes a student's legal status, the federal government isn’t giving them much information, Berger said.
Likely, an email will come from ICE simply alerting them to the change in status.
University officials say they’re not getting any information from ICE, so higher education administrators, including at UMass Amherst, are daily looking through the SEVIS database to see if their students were tagged.
"Volatility and uncertainty is bad for international education, but it's bad for the US economy," said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
The group of several hundred college and university presidents formed in 2017 during the first Trump administration
"It’s not just the loss of tuition it’s the loss of U.S. Innovation," Feldblum said, and right now schools are being placed in a very difficult position.
"[They're] having to navigate what what their role is and how best to provide timely, useful, responsive information to students" Feldblum said.
Campuses are connecting their students with legal networks — not just immigration lawyers, but those that have expertise in detentions and removals, Feldblum said.
"This is no longer just the province of a designated school official or an international student services. But many more on campus really have to understand what's going on, and students need more clarity," Feldblum said.
Students will likely pay out of pocket for legal services. But at least one online fundraiser was organized for a UMass Amherst student, and the university re-opened a Covid-era Angel Fund.
Self-deport?
Being on high alert is taking a toll on international students. It is very hard to focus on work, said the UMass Amherst PhD student.
"Things are changing every day," she said, "we might actually just have to pack our bags and head out, if things are getting worse."
International students are talking about that, said Asha Nadkarni, an English professor at UMass Amherst.
"I've heard graduate students say, 'well, what if they if they have to self-deport?' you know, 'were there options if can they finish their degrees?'" Nadkarni said.
Many of her graduate and undergraduate students are from South Asia. They often travel home in the summer, Nadkarni said, "not only for research and family purposes, but also because it's very expensive to stay here in the summer."
Work restrictions in the U.S. prevent them from making enough money to afford rent she said, but several told her, they plan to stay in the U.S. this summer "because they're really scared if they leave, they won't be able to come back and they won't be able to complete their studies."
Now Nadkarni said, they're concerned how they're going to make ends meet.
A bad moment could re-unify the campus?
Many faculty and students have been openly critical of Chancellor Javier Reyes's leadership since May 2024, after he sent for police when "pro-Palestinian" demonstrators refused to dismantle a campus encampment.
Reyes defended his decision to clear the encampment, which he said "posed a significant danger to the community."
In January, a report released by UMass Amherst, that looked at how and why the school responded with a heavy police presence during campus demonstrations, found Reyes’ decision to disband the protest using police “reasonable” but the attorneys also questioned if the chancellor could have taken another approach.
Shortly after the protest, the UMass Amherst Student Government Association, and faculty and librarians cast a vote of 'no confidence' in Reyes.
But Nadkarni said in her opinion, Reyes sent a strong message last week when he emailed the school community about the first wave of students whose visas were revoked.
Nadkarni is also vice president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, the faculty and librarian union on campus.
"I have been very critical, but I also feel like in this moment, we all really need to pull together to keep our community safe," Nadkarni said adding that it felt like the chancellor was rising to the occasion and she welcomed that.
"As somebody who's in the union leadership, I hope that maybe this is the beginning of being able to work more productively together, to do whatever we can to keep what we value safe,"
she said.
NEPM's Elizabeth Román contributed to this story.
