Cardiff University students left feeling ‘distressed’ following Trump’s US visa changes

Cardiff University students have been left feeling “distressed” following President Trump’s new US visa changes.

This comes as he officially ordered a temporary pause on all international student visa appointments.

According to the state department, the pause has been enacted whilst it prepares to increase social media vetting and background checks of applicants.

This is part of a wide-ranging crackdown on some of America’s most elite universities, which he sees as “overly liberal”.

Trump’s team has additionally frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for universities and moved to deport students, while revoking thousands of visas for others. Many of these actions have been blocked by the courts.

Critics say this new policy represents a violation of the rights that are supposed to be enshrined by the First Amendment in the US Constitution.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told the BBC: “We take very seriously the process of vetting who it is that comes into the country, and we’re going to continue to do that.”

How do Cardiff University students feel about these changes?

Third year physics student at Cardiff University, Maryam Ghani, was scheduled to do a month-long summer placement in Wyoming over July. She told The Cardiff Tab: “I was planning on getting a J visa but because of the visa pause I can’t get an appointment currently.

“I do feel quite distressed as we did book plane tickets already and it’s very much unknown as to what will happen. We’ve been advised to keep an eye out for any changes regarding visa appointments as everyone is hoping this will be solved in a matter of days.

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“Having to go through the US borders under the Trump administration was already quite daunting, so these new changes aggravate that further. I do think it is damaging the US’s international reputation and is certainly highlighting some xenophobic attitudes within their country that have been on the rise recently.”

Another Cardiff student whose partner was set to embark on a summer placement in the US added: “He’s still intending to study in the US but it’s very up in the air whether he will get his visa in time. He is pretty upset with these new changes as he’s had this planned for ages and have already paid for flights. Pretty much just fuck Trump.”

Sarah Kim, a first year journalism, communications and politics student at Cardiff University, lived in New York for seven years and was 10 years old when Trump was elected into office for the first time.

Her family left the US and moved to Vietnam at the end of his first presidency, due to the harmful rhetoric Trump was spreading about Asian Americans during the pandemic. Sarah and her family told The Cardiff Tab they no longer felt safe in the US, and this was a huge indicator that he had little to no regard for immigrants and international students.

This also impacted her decision when applying for universities: “I realised that my interests in pursuing a degree/career rooted in DEIJB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice and Belonging) principles would be very limited in the US as Trump was already in the process of getting rid of these values in higher education in 2020, and his campaign was focused on continuing this.

“I was also worried about his plans to make obtaining/keeping F1 visas more difficult for international students. As a journalism and politics student, post Columbia Uni encampment and how the government treated those students, I knew Trump would use any opposition to government policies as grounds to revoke visas.

“The only situation in which I would ever consider moving back to the US is if both the House and Senate have a democratic majority with a democratic president who is actively trying to remedy the injustices in the US, so very slim chances.”

US universities have spoken out against the new rules

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Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the US, has filed a lawsuit in response to Trump’s attempt to ban all international students from enrolling.

The Ivy League institution wrote on Instagram: “Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard.”

“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body.

“We have filed a complaint, and a motion for a temporary restraining order will follow. As we pursue legal remedies, we will do everything in our power to support our students and scholars.”

The US Government has been contacted for comment but has not yet responded.

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