Trump’s travel ban keeps international students from coming to the US for college

The Taliban prohibiting women from the University of his native Afghanistan, Bahara Saghari opposed the continuation of higher education in the United States.

Saghari, 21, practiced English up to eight hours a day for several years, finally winning an offer to study business administration in a private college of Liberal Arts in Illinois. She hoped to arrive this fall, but her plans have still derailed, this time by the ban on President Donald Trump.

“You think that ultimately you are going to your dream, then something came and as everything is just gone,” said Saghari.

Thousands of students are among the people affected by the Trump administration’s travel ban and restrictions on citizens in 19 countries, many of whom feel blocked after having invested considerable time and money to come to the United States

Some potential international students do not present themselves on American campuses this fall despite the admission offers due to logjams with visa applications, that the Trump administration slowed down this summer when it has deployed additional verification. Others had a second reflection due to the broader repression of the immigration of the administration and the abrupt end of the legal status of certain students.

But none face more important obstacles than students who have struck travel prohibitions. Last year, the State Department issued more than 5,700 F -1 and J -1 visas – which are used by foreign students and researchers – to people from the 19 countries affected by the bands and in September. The citizens of Iran and Myanmar have received more than half of the approved visas.

Pouya Karami, a 17-year-old student from Shiraz, Iran, concentrated her university research entirely on the United States, no other country offers the same science research opportunities, he said. He planned to study the chemistry of polymers this fall at the Pittsburg State University in Kansas, but he had to put these plans due to the ban on travel.

Karami has postponed admission until next year and is hopeful. He is still preparing for his maintenance of the embassy and contacts American politicians to reconsider restrictions on the ban on traveling to students.

“I do everything I can,” he said.

The prohibition of complete travel affects citizens of 12 countries covering Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Caribbean. It prevents most people from obtaining new visas, although some citizens of prohibited countries are exempt, such as holders of green cards, double citizens and certain athletes. Seven other countries have stricter restrictions that also apply to student visas.

When Trump announced the ban on travel in June, he cited high over-vision rates and national security threats from unstable or adversarial foreign governments as reasons to put the countries on the list. He called some of the screening processes in “deficient” countries and declared that he planned to maintain the prohibition in place until the “identified inadequacies” are processed.

In Myanmar, the family of an 18 -year -old student has studied their absolute priority, which saves payroll checks so that he can go abroad for the university. They risked their stability so that he could have the chance to live a better life, said the student, who asked to be identified by his nickname, Gu Gu, because he is worried about being targeted by Myanmar or the US government to express criticism.

When he shared a screenshot of his letter of acceptance at the University of Florida of the South in a family group cat, he exploded with festive emojis, said Gu Gu. He was waiting for the visa appointments to be announced when one night his mother woke up to ask questions about the news of an American travel ban. In an instant, its USF study plans this fall were ruined.

Many students of his age in Myanmar were drafted in the military or joined resistance groups since the soldiers oust the civil government elected in 2021. While a civil war raged, he was impatiently awaiting simple freedoms in the United States as walking in school or playing sports again.

“I was for us, so this kind of breaking my heart,” said Gu Gu, who could not postpone his acceptance.

Saghari, the Afghan student, postponed her appointment of July visa interview in Pakistan until August after learning the ban on travel, but finally canceled it. Knox College denied his request to postpone his admission.

She then applied in European schools but encountered problems with the admission process. A German university told Saghari that she should pass another skill test in English because a previous partition had expired, but pass the test the first time was already a challenge in the political climate of Afghanistan.

She was accepted in a Polish university provided that she pays her tuition fees in advance. She said her request was being revised because the school validates her high school diploma.

Amir, a 28-year-old Iranian graduate who refused to provide his family name for fear of being targeted, could not go to the United States to take a position as a visitors. Instead, he continued to work as a researcher in Tehran, saying that it was difficult to concentrate after missing an entirely funded opportunity to carry out research at the University of Pennsylvania.

His teacher in Penn has postponed his research appointment until next year, but Amir said that it looked like “a shot in the dark”.

He examined the research possibilities in Europe, which would require more time devoted to applications and potentially learning a new language. He would always prefer to be in the United States, he said, but it is not optimistic that the country’s foreign policy will change.

“You lose this idealistic vision of the world. As you think, if I work hard, if I am talented, if I contribute, I have a place elsewhere, essentially somewhere you want to be,” he said. “And then you learn that, no, maybe people don’t want you there. It’s a bit difficult to face it.”

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Todd Feathers contributed to this report.

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