The Visa Wall No One Sees

Since Trump's victory in the 2024 elections, international students looking to further their education have faced an increasingly threatening U.S. immigration system. The State Department has issued guidance to students stating that they now require applicants to make all their social media profiles public, even on platforms that no longer exist, such as Vine and Google+. Despite having clear privacy concerns for many minors and/or people who don't want to be contacted by people they don't know on social media, this requirement is nearly impossible to meet. To apply, you must now provide your username for up to 20 different social media services, with the government scanning posts for any information that would show your "hostility towards the United States." Despite this "hostility" clearly being defined as anything the Trump administration doesn't agree with, as evidenced by their attacks on student protests, this mandate is a clear attack on free speech, especially for students who are fleeing authoritarian regimes only to be forced to reveal their personal details to the White House.

This policy is part of a larger campaign by the current administration to initiate what they call "expanded screening and vetting." In reality, it has been a crackdown on dissent. State Department cables show that immigration officers are instructed to scrutinize social media accounts for evidence of contrary political leanings and any criticism of American institutions, a deliberate attack on our First Amendment right to criticize the government. This system, while clearly authoritarian, disproportionately targets students from Muslim-majority countries, where institutions such as the military are more commonly criticized online, for issues such as their funding of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The effect of these actions has been devastating. An analysis from the Cato Institute found that F-1 student visa denial rates, even before Trump took office, jumped to a record 41 percent in 2024, up from only 15 percent in 2014. With Trump's actions, this number is only expected to dramatically rise. Hundreds of thousands of students looking to contribute to our economy will be turned away, and American universities will be deprived of billions. Universities that especially rely on international enrollment, such as small private institutions without substantial federal grants, could be forced to cut programs or even cease to exist.

Beyond just looking at the statistics, the toll on individual families is striking. The Guardian spoke with students from Iran who have been blocked by the new restrictions, describing their ambitions of a bright academic future overnight. "It felt like my dreams had collapsed," one student said, showing the same sense of betrayal that hundreds of students who were admitted to top programs feel, but are left stranded abroad in their home countries because of the restrictions. For many students who made it to our country and are enrolled in universities, they feel forced to self-censor online and shy away from campus activism, fearing that their visas could be revoked over something as minimal as an anti-Trump tweet.

Already, universities are feeling the impacts of Trump's policy. The Department of Homeland Security proposed capping the validity of student visas at only four years, even though programs such as Ph.D. programs and research degrees last longer. This shift in policy, combined with visa cancellations and delays, has left institutions such as Arizona State University with tens of millions in losses as students are stranded abroad before classes begin.

The consequences aren't just specific to education. International students contribute in countless ways to our nation: tens of billions to the U.S. economy, innovation in science and research, and creating new businesses that make our nation internationally competitive. By making our visa process unnecessarily authoritarian and difficult, the United States risks ceding its global leadership in education, not just to allies like Canada and the United Kingdom, where policies remain more welcoming, but to rivals like China, where investment in education is only increasing.