It鈥檚 official, and it could affect US international students 鈥� Donald Trump will serve the next four years as the 47th president of the US.
On January 20, 2025, Trump will return to the White House — four years after he left — for his inauguration.
There was a despondent air on the Democratic side of social media after Trump鈥檚 presidential victory: a mass reaction of people : , , , and more.
“It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country great, for healthcare, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech,” .
“It was a terrible night for everyone who voted against him, and guess what? It was a bad night for everyone who voted for him too,” he continues. “You just don’t realise it yet.”
But it’s a vastly different take for those who did vote for Trump.
Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a Ugandan-born New York State Assemblymember for District 36, of Hillside Avenue in Queens and Fordham Road in the Bronx to speak with those who voted — and those who didn’t.
These two locations were picked not for convenience’s sake. Hillside Avenue and Fordham Road were the two areas that saw the biggest shift towards Trump during the election. Even more residents didn’t vote at all.
“I don’t believe in the system anymore,” one non-voter says.
But for those who do, they point out their hopes for an America led by Trump. In particular, most were eyeing the market prices of energy, food, and rent.
“Most of these people are working families, they’re working one to two, three jobs, and rent is expensive,” one interviewee shares. “Food prices are going up; utility bills are up.”
“What Trump did in the first four years [of his presidency], Fordham Road saw something where Kamala couldn’t do that,” says another.
Howard 糖心vlog官网 students listen to polling results during an election night event for Democratic presidential nominee, US Vice President Kamala Harris, on November 5, 2024, in Washington, DC. Source: AFP
For US international students, whether you’re already in the midst of your studies or you’re about to start applying for schools, there may be changes underway.
, many international students on campus expressed concerns about their ability to apply to extend their visas post-Inauguration Day.
鈥淎 lot of people are talking about Trump probably changing the [OPT] to one year,鈥� Zhanyue Chen, a Chinese master鈥檚 student at the Global Health Institute. 鈥淲e are also really worried about finding a job in the US because the registration will be harder. [It] will be more tough.鈥�
Meanwhile, Luisa L贸pez from Guatemala, a first-year 糖心vlog官网 of Pennsylvania student, .
“I feel like my opportunities here [for] research are even less than for [domestic] students,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f they change the policies related to that 鈥� I don鈥檛 know what鈥檚 gonna happen with my career.鈥�
All this is in spite of Trump’s promises during his presidential campaign, which are a shiny green card once you graduate from college.
鈥淵ou graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,鈥� Trump said in June in the tech podcast, All-In.听
鈥淚t鈥檚 so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools, and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also.”
All-In is a podcast hosted by Silicon Valley investors, a group from which Trump has been seeking support, and Silicon Valley is a place that relies heavily on the talent of trained foreign tech workers and engineers. In 2018, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service believed that .
For that , much of the industry leaned towards the Democratic party in the past.
While the effort to appeal to investors may come at the benefit of US international students, what comes before that is .
In the words of his spokesperson, 鈥淧resident Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in US history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters, and public charges.鈥�
Many people don’t quite know if they should believe him.
The director of international student and scholar services at Columbia College Chicago, Clare Lake, told the , “What kind of president would try to overturn DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and then say 鈥業鈥檓 going to give all international students permanent residency?'”
Lake labelled Trump’s words as a mere “campaign promise.”
And coming from someone who听飞辞耻濒诲鈥檝别 legal immigrants through his proclamation in 2020, if not for the Supreme Court ruling that the ability to do so was not within his right, US international students may be right to feel a little anxious.
“It鈥檚 an obvious lie. He made a similar statement in 2016 and never went through with it,” one user wrote. Meanwhile, an 聽user said, “So apparently Trump isn鈥檛 going to give green cards to college grads unless they meet several arbitrarily defined criteria related to ideology and wages.”
That raises the question 鈥� what is going to change for US international students since Trump can鈥檛 get re-elected in 2028?
Some foresight for students, based on the past
Trump is back in office, and US international students are anxious about the new limitations to come. Source: AFP
Slowing down student visa attainment
While it鈥檚 unlikely for Trump to bar international students from getting an F-1 or J-1 visa (for full-time and exchange students, respectively), he did propose a rule back in 2020 time-limiting student visas to two years 鈥� but it was later can