As of Thursday, April 17, at least 70 international students at colleges and universities in New York state have had their visas revoked. Across the country, nearly 1,700 international students’ visas have been revoked as of April 22. In the first months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the executive branch has taken unprecedented action against the rights of international students studying in the United States. These efforts come in the context of Trump’s greater attacks on illegal and legal immigration. As of publication, no international students at Vassar have had their student visas revoked.
The Department of Homeland Security has cited pro-Palestinian activism as the reason for these student deportations, with Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin saying, “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here.” In many notable cases, such as that of Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian organizer at Columbia University, students’ deportations have been described as a way to quell antisemitism at universities.
In an April 18 email to the Vassar community, President of the College Elizabeth Bradley reaffirmed the school’s commitment to the safety of international students, writing: “We are deeply concerned about revocations of visas, the detentions, and the deportations of international students and colleagues in higher education nationally; this has not happened on our campus, and we will not provide personal information to any agency without a court-ordered warrant.” Bradley acknowledged that there are uncertain factors relating to Vassar’s resources. She mentioned the federal endowment tax, which could shrink Vassar’s usable assets, noting, “The market downturn as well as the general uncertainty in the country and globe may also affect philanthropy and our endowment value, and we are assessing alternative options for weathering this challenging time.”
Vassar College Professor of History Daniel Mendiola, whose research centers on Central America and who was a moderator at a recent immigration summit hosted on campus, challenged the Trump administration’s stated motives for the deportations, saying, “This is one of the most antisemitic administrations, just in terms of what they’ve said in the past, who they surround themselves with, who they’re pardoning.” Instead of antisemitism, he suggested that these deportations are part of the Trump Administration’s greater effort to remove as many immigrants from the U.S. as possible. He cited a Fox News interview with JD Vance, in which the Vice President states: “[International students are] not just bad for national security, [they are] bad for the American dream for a lot of kids who want to go to a nice university and can’t, because their spot was taken by a foreign student.” For Mendiola, Vance’s words admit that the Trump administration’s motives are much more in line with pure xenophobia than with addressing antisemitism. “The idea is just an all-out assault on any legal immigrant they can get rid of,” Mendiola commented.
At Vassar, students from countries other than the United States make up a large percentage of the student body; the Class of 2028 alone is 18.2 percent international students. An international student who wished to remain anonymous said, “It’s a scary prospect because Vassar has a good chunk of international students here, many of whom are low-income students, many of whom have escaped all kinds of regional situations around the world, some of which are refugee students who are here.” The student noted that the Trump Administration’s policies have left some communities on campus feeling “incredibly scared and traumatized.” Mendiola’s comments similarly highlighted this fear. Of the Trump administration, he noted, “They basically have [set the precedent] that no international student has the right to be here.” He added, “Any chance that they can find to reduce legal immigration, they are taking it, and they have expressed pretty openly that that is their intention. So, it’s hard to imagine that as things expand it wouldn’t touch the Vassar campus at some point.”
Speaking on the 2024 Trump v. United States Supreme Court case, which expanded former presidents’ immunity for the actions taken during their administration, Mendiola highlighted that the limits of what the executive branch can do to immigrants are vague: “It’s not clear that the Supreme Court would stop any of this, even though it’s clearly breaking established law, and even if they did, it’s not clear the administration would care, because they’ve already got immunity.”
Bradley’s April 18 email also mentioned that the College will start to offer one-on-one counseling to employees in collaboration with Pace University Law School’s Immigration Justice Clinic. She urged students to work through the Office of International Services as well as the Office of Student Growth and Engagement to make sure they are familiar with their rights and the capacity at which the college can protect them. Additionally, Bradley assured students that Vassar’s general counsel, Shay Humphrey, will remain available to advise all noncitizen students.
To Mendiola, this emphasis on providing legal representation is the best way the school could prepare for potential deportation orders: “By making a bold statement that our legal counsel is going to represent students—our legal counsel is going to make sure that students have the full extent of the law behind them…that actually is pretty important. And that does seem to be what has slowed down this process the most. As much as this [Trump] Administration would like people just gone instantly, legal representation does still matter.”
The threats to international students are also an ongoing issue for the Vassar Student Association (VSA). Sara Golakova is a third-year international student and a VSA Senator. She is working to create a comprehensive list of resources tracking how the new higher education policies will affect life at Vassar. These resources come from both within and outside Vassar, ranging from policy overviews to mental health resources. Golakova commented, “I started my term in late January, which was also the start of the Trump Administration. My first idea was, ‘How can I help my community?’ I looked at how the law and higher education policy was changing and thought, ‘How about I make a one-stop shop list of resources that students can use?’” Golakova was already leading efforts to lower the postgraduate student loan interest rates for international students.
While it is hard to predict the full scale of impact these threats to international students will have on individual students at Vassar and across the country, to Mendiola, the precedent suggests a dangerous direction for the United States. He summarized, “If there’s no limits on the government, then there’s no limits on what they can do to you, and we’re entering into a post-rights society.”