With students at many colleges wrapping up final exams this week and preparing for their winter break, a number of schools, including Harvard University, University of Southern California and Cornell University, are advising their international students to return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20.

During his last administration, Trump imposed restrictions on entry to the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries, a policy that stranded thousands of students who were abroad at the time. Later in his term, Trump added more countries to the restricted travel list. And he has spoken of wanting to reimpose those restrictions once he is back in the White House.

“A travel ban is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration,” Cornell’s Office of Global Learning warned students on its website late last month, advising them to be back in the United States before the start of spring-semester classes on Jan. 21. “The ban is likely to include citizens of the countries targeted in the first Trump administration: Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia. New countries could be added to this list, particularly China and India.”

Colleges Warn Students for Border Delays

Colleges are also warning all students to prepare for possible delays at the border and in the processing of paperwork.

“Budget time ahead of the semester start, prior to the January Martin Luther King holiday,” Harvard advised on its website for international students who have concerns.

The University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and Wesleyan University have issued comparable advisories and guidance. The advice is precautionary in nature, since the policies of the new administration remain uncertain.

Trump has said that he wanted to bring back or strengthen some of the travel restrictions he imposed in his first term.

At an event in September with a Republican donor, Miriam Adelson, Trump said he would “seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” apparently referring to his restrictions on travel from some majority-Muslim countries. He also said that he would “ban refugee resettlement from terror-infested areas like the Gaza Strip.”

More than 1.1 million students from outside the United States were enrolled in American colleges and universities in the 2023-24 academic year, according to Open Doors, a data project partially funded by the U.S. State Department.

India was the most common place of origin for international students last year, followed by China; together, they accounted for more than half of all international students in the country. South Korea ranked third.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Sharon Otterman/Heather Ainsworth
c. 2024 The New York Times Company