By Bre­an­na Bon­ner
UConn Jour­nal­ism

Afra Has­san-Pour, an inter­na­tion­al stu­dent pur­su­ing her mas­ter’s degree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Connecticut’s School of Fine Arts, said she chose to study in the Unit­ed States after learn­ing it is one of the best places in the world to study art man­age­ment. 

Now Has­san-Pour said the cli­mate in the U.S. feels increas­ing­ly hos­tile toward peo­ple from oth­er coun­tries. 

“It feels like the goal is to make things hard for every inter­na­tion­al per­son in the U.S. and make them leave the coun­try,” she said. “And a big part of it is this hys­te­ria, this men­tal scare, this fear that is being cre­at­ed every day through news, through media, through pro­pa­gan­da.” 

In the first year of Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sec­ond term, inter­na­tion­al stu­dents have expe­ri­enced increased polit­i­cal, legal and ide­o­log­i­cal hos­til­i­ty amid intense crack­downs on immi­gra­tion and scruti­ny of inter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors and stu­dents.  More than 6,000 inter­na­tion­al stu­dent visas were revoked from the start of Trump’s term through August, accord­ing to U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio. Of those, 40 were for stu­dents in Con­necti­cut, includ­ing 13 at UConn, which were lat­er restored. 

Nation­wide, the num­ber of new inter­na­tion­al stu­dents enrolled in U.S. insti­tu­tions in fall 2025 decreased by 17%, accord­ing to the Open Doors 2025 data report. UConn’s inter­na­tion­al enroll­ment is down almost 8% from 3,455 in fall 2024 to 3,189 in fall 2025. 

Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents “feel less free and less wel­comed,” said Arthur Gali­nat, direc­tor of UConn’s Cen­ter for Inter­na­tion­al Stu­dent Ser­vices and Schol­ars. “We’ve seen an attack on uni­ver­si­ties and inter­na­tion­al stu­dents that we’ve nev­er seen before” 

The U.S. hosts the great­est num­ber of inter­na­tion­al stu­dents glob­al­ly, with an enter­ing class of around 1.1 mil­lion inter­na­tion­al stu­dents in 2024, which was about 6% of total enroll­ment at U.S. insti­tu­tions, accord­ing to Inside High­er ED.   

Most inter­na­tion­al stu­dents attend uni­ver­si­ty through an F‑1 visa, which allows them to study at an accred­it­ed col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty. Stu­dent and Exchange Vis­i­tor Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem visa ter­mi­na­tions have led to inter­na­tion­al stu­dents hav­ing their visa sta­tus sud­den­ly revoked, being removed from their jobs and becom­ing sub­ject­ed to depor­ta­tion. In March, over 1,500 stu­dents report­ed a sud­den change in their infor­ma­tion sys­tem list­ing or visa sta­tus across 250 uni­ver­si­ties, accord­ing to Inside High­er ED. 

In response to back­lash against stu­dent visa revo­ca­tions, Rubio said the actions were jus­ti­fied. “Let’s remem­ber again – stu­dent visas, OK, are not a right. There is no con­sti­tu­tion­al right to a stu­dent visa.  A stu­dent visa is some­thing we decide to give you,” he said. “So, if I would have denied you a visa had I known some­thing about you…why wouldn’t I be able to revoke your visa?” 

In April, the Amer­i­can Civ­il Lib­er­ties Union sued the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty for the sud­den ter­mi­na­tion of four inter­na­tion­al stu­dents’ visas who were study­ing in Con­necti­cut: Yan Du and Meng­ni He from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty, as well as Eli­ka Shams and Stephen Azu from UConn. 

 Accord­ing to the U.S. Dis­trict Court com­plaint filed by the ACLU, the plain­tiffs became afraid to go to “lab, class, or even the gro­cery store” for fear of sud­den depor­ta­tion. The court ruled in the student’s favor, order­ing the restora­tion of their visas and pre­vent­ing fur­ther action on their sta­tus by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. While their sta­tus was restored in late May, ACLU Con­necti­cut legal direc­tor Dan Bar­rett said it had last­ing impact on inter­na­tion­al stu­dents.  

“I think it’s quite fair for those stu­dents to real­ly won­der whether the oth­er shoe is going to drop,” Bar­rett said. 

Bar­rett also not­ed that inter­na­tion­al stu­dents are self-cen­sor­ing in response to increased scruti­ny from the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.  

“They’re cen­sor­ing them­selves,” Bar­rett said. “The gov­ern­ment has, at the moment, made it real­ly clear that they think that there’s some kind of loop­hole that allows them to pun­ish peo­ple in the Unit­ed States for express­ing views, even if they express those views… before com­ing to the Unit­ed States. So yeah, I think they’re keep­ing their heads down.” 

Recent­ly there have been high-pro­file cas­es of inter­na­tion­al stu­dent visas being revoked due to their par­tic­i­pa­tion in protests, includ­ing includ­ed Mah­moud Khalil, a Pales­tin­ian stu­dent at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty who was arrest­ed in March by ICE for his involve­ment in a pro-Pales­tin­ian protest.  Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD stu­dent at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty, was detained by ICE in March after co-writ­ing a pro-Pales­tin­ian op-ed for the col­lege news­pa­per, accord­ing to the ACLU. 

Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents have had to wait longer to enter the coun­try due to enhanced vet­ting and the extra time need­ed to review appli­ca­tions. Recent­ly, this process has includ­ed social media vet­ting of all F, M and J visa appli­ca­tions, accord­ing to a media note from the U.S. Depart­ment of State.  

Trump has also urged schools to lim­it inter­na­tion­al stu­dents. In a com­pact let­ter to nine uni­ver­si­ties in Octo­ber 2025, Trump asked schools to lim­it inter­na­tion­al stu­dent enroll­ment to no more than 15% of under­grad­u­ate stu­dents to receive pri­or­i­ty for fed­er­al fund­ing. Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents cur­rent­ly make up 9.4% of UConn’s stu­dent body, exclud­ing UConn health and law cam­pus­es, accord­ing to UConn spokesper­son Stephanie Reitz.

Hwong Pham, inter­na­tion­al stu­dent advis­er for UConn’s Cen­ter for Inter­na­tion­al Stu­dents and Schol­ars, said she believes that the changes and uncer­tain­ty will lead to a nation­wide decline in inter­na­tion­al stu­dent enroll­ment. 

“The envi­ron­ment that is going on right now… every­thing is so hard. The appli­ca­tion is so hard. The visa is hard, and [inter­na­tion­al stu­dents] might not even get it. We are mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for them to real­ly even want to be here,” Pham said.  

UConn’s sta­tus as a top 25 uni­ver­si­ty draws in stu­dents from around the world. How­ev­er, Thomas Kat­souleas, an engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sor who pre­vi­ous­ly served as UConn pres­i­dent, said the nation­al cli­mate has shift­ed.  

“They just feel a gen­er­al sense of being less wel­come, and they also have clear­ly lost the abil­i­ty to have the free speech that we as cit­i­zens have,” he said. 

Kat­souleas said he believes that the pres­ence of inter­na­tion­al stu­dents is inte­gral to the learn­ing envi­ron­ment at UConn and oth­er insti­tu­tions. 

“The argu­ment has always been…that the stu­dent learn­ing expe­ri­ence was enhanced by hav­ing a diverse cohort of peers, and there’s research to sup­port that,” he said. 

Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents con­tribute to U.S. inno­va­tion, often stay­ing in the coun­try after grad­u­a­tion on an H1B visa to work in spe­cial­ized fields. Inter­na­tion­al stu­dents con­tribute over $44 bil­lion to the econ­o­my annu­al­ly, accord­ing to the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions.  

Some stu­dents say the poli­cies have led to dai­ly anx­i­ety and hyper­vig­i­lance. Chizobam Nweke, a doc­tor­al stu­dent from Nige­ria, said he now always car­ries two copies of his immi­gra­tion doc­u­ments, “just in case.” 

Though it some­times feels extreme, Has­san-Pour and her part­ner do the same. 

 “Based on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, we need to be ready to show doc­u­ments to who­ev­er is try­ing to per­se­cute us or what­ev­er hap­pens — espe­cial­ly like see­ing all the videos on social media and on the news and how immi­grant peo­ple are treat­ed,” Has­san-Pour said. 

 As pol­i­cy con­tin­ues chang­ing and uncer­tain­ty lingers, Has­san-Pour has a request for the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty look­ing to sup­port inter­na­tion­al stu­dents.  

“What I want them to know is how impor­tant it is to be acces­si­ble to peo­ple who are liv­ing in this kind of sit­u­a­tion,” Has­san-Pour said. “If they text you and they want to talk to you, please make time for them.” 

Anna Heqi­mi con­tributed report­ing to this arti­cle.