In April 2025, the Trump administration revoked the visas of at least one Brown student and multiple recent graduates in a move mirroring similar actions targeting university students across the United States. One year later, international students at Brown are still worried about their immigration status.
The Herald spoke to four international students about their visa experiences and how comfortable they feel expressing their views on and off campus. Three of these students spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns about their visa statuses.
“I don’t even want to risk it”: Concerns with re-entry
One student, who is from a country in the Middle East, said that getting a U.S. visa in her country has always been difficult. “You need to be very careful with your answers" to questions when applying, she said, adding that the process can be “uncertain” and “frightening” because “a lot of the time it depends on the person who’s interviewing you at the embassy and their mood.”
She received an F-1 student visa before she arrived at Brown, but due to U.S. immigration restrictions on her home country, any time she travels home, she has to reapply for the visa to return to campus.
Last spring, when student visas across the country were being revoked, the student immediately checked her own visa’s status. “I remember my heart literally sank to my stomach,” she said. “It was very scary.” She said that she and other international students “were really scared of more happening.”
She and other Brown students from the same country have stayed in Providence for every winter and summer break, “frightened of the prospect of going back home and then reapplying and getting rejected,” she said.
The student was planning to return home for winter break in December, prepared to risk her reapplication for a visa being rejected. But after speaking with an immigration lawyer who noticed a small mistake in her initial application, she was told the risk would be too great.
“The immigration lawyer told me, ‘Don’t go back home, because they’ve been looking for any reasons to reject anyone,’” she said.
In January, a federal proclamation officially placed her home country, as well as nearly 40 others, under a travel ban. Were she to visit home, she would be unable to return to Brown until the ban is lifted.
This summer, she will have gone two years without seeing her family. She said she goes back and forth on whether being at school in the United States is worth the time apart. “I ask myself that on the daily,” she said.
The difficulties associated with her immigration status as an international student extend to other facets of her life at Brown, both inside and outside of the classroom. She said she is often hesitant to express her political views in large classes, fearing the small chance of being reported for what she says and facing deportation or trouble with the federal government. “I don’t even want to risk it,” she said.
She also said that there are certain on-campus groups she would be more involved in if she weren’t an international student. “I would definitely be more engaged in writing political articles,” she said. Right now, she is an editor for campus publications, but is careful not to include her full name on certain pieces she edits.
She added that she has been hesitant to participate in campus protests, and she has noticed similar sentiments among other students from the Global South.
After the U.S. Department of State released a policy announcing that immigration officials will vet the online presence of anyone applying for an F, M or J non-immigrant visa — documentation that applies to individuals studying or participating in a cultural exchange — the student stopped interacting with social media posts related to the United States or politics.
“I thought Americans were the optimal example of advocacy for political freedom,” she said. “It has been really mindblowing to me that I don’t really see as much reaction as I expected.” She added that this has left her “a little disappointed.”
She said that Brown has done what it can, but that most of these issues are out of the University’s control. “It’s just a really difficult situation,” she said. “The truth is no one knows what is going to happen.”
“In closed doors”: Comfort levels with campus expression
During his student visa application process last summer, another student unfollowed all news accounts on social media, “especially left-leaning news.” He carefully monitored his social media activity, ensuring he didn’t comment on or like any posts that opposed the current administration.
As an international student from Vietnam, he said he feels more comfortable expressing his views in the United States than at home, though he is still cognizant of actions and words that could jeopardize his visa status. He said he feels comfortable expressing his views in private and with close friends behind closed doors at Brown, but he avoids any public comments or demonstrations that pertain to politics.
“In public, I wouldn’t say something that goes really against the agenda of the administration,” he said. “It’s just minimizing risks,” he said. “The administration is finding every reason to deport anyone.”
Drawn to the “meritocratic” nature of the United States, he said he plans to apply for a green card after graduation and pursue citizenship. While he said it may be harder to get a job without U.S. citizenship, he is hopeful this will change after the current administration’s term comes to an end.
The student said he can still pursue most of the activities he enjoys at Brown, including filmmaking and entrepreneurship. There are some activities he feels like he can no longer participate in — such as debate or advocacy work — but he said his time is filled enough without them.
“It’s definitely restrictive,” he said. “I just have to come to terms with it because I can’t really do anything about it.”
“We feel like criminals”: Strict screening and limitations to free speech
Another student from a country in the Middle East is still able to return home but shared that the process for reentering the United States creates fear and paranoia that impacts his experience at Brown and beyond.
When the student attended high school in Boston during the first Trump administration, his visa was suddenly canceled without explanation, he said. After a year and a half, during which he attended school in his home country, he was eventually able to obtain another F-1 student visa. He said he has since then has faced increased scrutiny when entering the United States, which he suspects is likely due to the flagging of this cancellation.
Every time he reenters the United States, he is brought into a small room at the airport for secondary inspection, a process that is intended to verify the information and status of an individual. There, he said, agents often interrogate him for about an hour. He called the process intimidating and frightening. “Every time I enter the States, I’m never not shaking,” he said.
In the room, they often ask him personal and specific questions that he said can be difficult to answer, such as the addresses and social media accounts of distant family members.
“I’m here to try to get a good education. I’m not here to do anything else,” he said. “When we get interrogated like that, we feel like criminals.”
At Brown, the student said he “definitely feel(s) comfortable” expressing his views in person. But online, he is more hesitant. He said that even on Brown websites and class discussion boards on Canvas, he is careful to appear politically neutral.
During the pro-Palestine protests on campus in spring 2024, the student said he couldn’t attend the demonstrations due to concerns of being recorded. “I feel for the Palestinians,” he said. “I really wanted to go, but I couldn’t go because of that.”
This kind of self-censorship has impacted the way he views the right to free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. “I do not have free speech here” as an international student, he said. “You don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to have free speech, but it feels like you need to be a U.S. citizen.”
He said that while the government in his home country is often criticized for censorship and free speech restrictions, the guidelines there are clearer than in the United States.
“Back home, I know my limits,” he said. “Don’t talk about the government publicly, and don’t criticize religion.” In the United States, “I would be scared to share my views on anything,” he said.
After he graduates, he plans to leave the United States. He said that while he would like to come back for his friends’ graduations, he believes that obtaining a visitor visa will be very difficult. “I wish I could be able to come, but it’s out of my control,” he said. “I think that’s what hurts the most.”
“You just don’t really know how much they’re actually looking at”: Surveillance and self-censorship
When she was 13 years old, Isabella Wei ’27 came to the United States from China for boarding school. She was on an F-1 student visa, and she obtained a green card during her first year of college.
She said she is “quite comfortable” expressing views in casual settings, but is more hesitant to publicly express her views.
“This used to be a China-specific issue, but now, I guess it’s the same thing for the U.S. too,” she said, noting cases of people’s social media accounts being banned back in China.
Wei said she still worries about her green card status, as she said she has heard of people with green cards being deported.
Wei said she will “always criticize” the Chinese government’s “censorship and surveillance.” Now, over the past year in the United States, “there were so many moments where I’m like, so I’m basically living in China again,” she said.
“I used to think that in the U.S., I would be comfortable writing my original opinions and publishing them, putting them out, but now I don’t necessarily think that anymore,” she added.
Wei, who is a member of the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice, said she sometimes doesn’t put her name on petitions or attend community-organizing events because of her status as an international student. “I think if I had more freedom… I would do (community outreach) more for causes that I really care about,” she said.
In high school, Isabella used U.S. social media platforms rather than Chinese platforms to follow the A4 Revolution or White Paper Protests — a wave of 2022 protests against censorship and strict COVID-19 lockdowns in China — and help organize a protest at her school. Now, she no longer uses U.S. platforms in this way and is “less vocal” online. “In the back of my head, it’s just like, this is not a safe space anymore,” she said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
One of the difficulties in being an international student is how “the whole system is so opaque,” Wei said. “You just don’t really know how much they’re actually looking at.”
Rachel Wicker is a senior staff writer covering affinity and identity. She is from Athens, Georgia and plans on concentrating in English on the nonfiction track and International and Public Affairs. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading books of any genre and doing yoga.
