Photo by Kiera McLaughlin ’26
Due to an executive order that could impact international students, the College issued an advisory.
BY AMY NGUYEN ’28
STAFF WRITER
Content Warning: This article discusses antisemitism and xenophobia.
After being inaugurated as president of the United States on Jan. 20, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.” The order, according to NPR, calls for federal agencies to more heavily scrutinize people who attempt to immigrate to the United States, as well as those who seek visas or who are applying for refugee status. Notably, it stipulates that foreign nationals arriving from “regions or nations with identified security risks” should be vetted more heavily and that any foreign nationals admitted should not bear “hostile attitudes” towards the United States.
The order includes enhancing screening and vetting processes and permitting the use of visa denial based on ideological grounds. It also tasks several offices of the presidential cabinet with identifying countries that, as deemed by the U.S. government, do not have sufficient “vetting and screening” processes for U.S. entry. The order states that this insufficiency could warrant “partial or full suspension” on the admission of people from those nations.
Concerning the immediate impacts the incoming Trump administration could have on immigration and visa issues, Mount Holyoke College’s McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives issued a travel advisory email for international students before the winter break.
The email states that “based on previous experience with travel bans that were enacted in 2017, the McCulloch Center would like to encourage students who will be traveling outside of the US over winter break to pay particular attention to their travel plans, including planning to return to the US before the inauguration on January 20th, 2025.”
“We are fully prepared to support all international students. We are in regular contact with our colleagues at other colleges and universities and consulting with our outside immigration counsel to provide timely and accurate guidance,” the email said.
Moreover, on Feb. 4, the McCulloch Center hosted an on-campus information session with Attorney Dan Berger at the immigration law firm Green & Spiegel to talk about updates that might impact F-1 and J-1 visa students and answer questions. In a follow-up email, the College’s Senior Immigration Advisor Jennifer Medina shared further advice from Berger with students. According to Medina, Berger highly suggests students take a picture of the ID page of their passports and I-20 forms with their phones so that they are available, in case they are ever questioned about their status in the U.S. while off campus. He also recommended keeping copies of these documents in wallets or backpacks.
A first-year student at the College interviewed for this piece, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, is an international student from China. The student told Mount Holyoke News that, “When I came here, my parents, my teachers, everyone, what they tell me is I shouldn’t take part in any protest or any activities with politic ideas, politic thoughts.”
The student said that they feel international students studying in the United States have less freedom to express their political ideas, and that the same problem exists “even for the domestic students.”
“Trump actually can’t kick out international students because they give him so much money,” Larissa Lee ’27, an international student from Malaysia, said in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “He only wants freedom of speech when it works for him. He doesn’t care about anyone else, especially if they’re not Americans ... His way of thinking is that freedom of speech only belongs to Americans.”
The 2025 executive order aims to protect U.S. citizens from “terrorist attacks” and “hateful ideology,” therefore reinforcing U.S. national security against foreign threats, according to the order’s text on the official White House website. According to Al Jazeera, the order raises concerns about discrimination. The order may also have a potential impact on international students who are from countries that have a travel suspension, in the case that a suspension was enacted based on the executive order. At time of publication, there are no active suspensions on travel in place.
In 2017, Trump issued an executive order on the first day of his presidency temporarily suspending the entry of individuals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen. While the executive order in 2025 is not a travel ban, it permits rejection of foreign nationals on the grounds of “hateful ideology,” which the order says is intended to prevent individuals who may harbor hostile attitudes toward the United States from entering the country.
Using data from the U.S. State Department, The Guardian reported that more than 40,000 people were refused visas as a result of the ban in 2017, including students and faculty of higher education. The Guardian also stated that the president-elect has threatened to invoke a travel ban via executive order as he did during his first term, and several U.S. universities have issued warnings to their international students to return back to campus before the inauguration.
The 2025 executive order requires federal officials to identify the number of people from countries with “deficient” screening information who have entered the U.S. since former President Joe Biden’s inauguration, as well as any other information “deem[ed] relevant to the actions or activities of such nationals since their admission or entry to the United States.” Whenever the identified information supports the exclusion or removal of a person, the Department of Homeland Security is charged with carrying it out. This includes those who “support designated foreign terrorists and other threats” to U.S. security.
According to the Brennan Center of Justice, these actions may aim to target international students and professors advocating against the Israel-Hamas war. Previously, Trump has called for deporting international students who protest in support of Palestinians. A Jan. 29, 2025 executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism” claims that, in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the U.S. saw “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism, and violence against our citizens, especially in our schools and on our campuses.” According to NPR, while “many student protesters have complained that their anti-Israel demonstrations have been unfairly conflated with antisemitism,” many Jewish students have “reject[ed] that notion, saying what they’ve experienced has clearly veered into the realm of violence and harassment.”
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Maryam Jamshidi, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, said that the Jan. 20, 2025 order’s language is “certainly about foreign nationals, including foreign students who are participating in Palestine advocacy.”
Karishma Ramkarran ’27 contributed fact-checking.