[The author of this article and the sources included wish to remain anonymous for their safety.]
When President Donald Trump was elected into the Oval Office for his second term, many of my international friends started to spiral.
They were in an online echo chamber of people telling them that the worst is yet to come. International students were fearful of what the administration could do and how it could change their lives forever without reason. And then it happened.
Mahmoud Khalil is one of the first students to have their visa revoked under the Trump Administration. Now my friends are seeing even more of these videos on their social media. Every time a new story would come out of another international student losing their visa, their feeds would be flooded by more and more people telling them they’re not safe.
Because now more than ever, one mistake could change their lives forever. The freedom to express themselves fully is no longer accessible to them.
On January 30, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that mandates federal agencies to monitor and report the activity of international students who participated in any “sympathizers of Hamas” protest or content, also known as “Catch and Revoke.”
The administration started using artificial intelligence to scrub social media of international students for engagement with “pro-Hamas” content. They are then flagged, and their visas are revoked.
As of April 2025, over 280 colleges and universities have been affected, and nearly 1,800 international students and recent graduates have lost their visas and legal status.
On March 16, the Trump administration went on Face the Nation to make it clear that there is no stopping.
“When you apply to enter the United States and you get a visa, you are a guest,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a briefing. “If you tell us when you apply for a visa, ‘I’m coming to the U.S. to participate in pro-Hamas events,’ that runs counter to the foreign policy interest of the United States … If you had told us you were going to do that, we never would have given you the visa
In order to get a closer look at how these new policies have been affecting the big and vibrant international student community at Wayne State College, I decided to speak to some international students and ask them questions about how they are feeling about being in the U.S. at the moment. I interviewed four students, and they all decided to remain anonymous for their safety.
When asked if they feel safe in the United States, I received mixed answers. Some said that even during this uncertain time that they still feel safer than they did in their home countries. While others feel a little more aware, but feel nothing has really changed in their everyday life.
“I think I’m definitely aware of what’s happening in the media and stuff, but I do feel it’s very scary though a lot of it is sensationalized,” said a source who asked not to be named. “Some things I’m more apprehensive about, but not any more than before the elections.”
One source expressed to me that they have never really felt fully safe, and now that feeling is just heightened.
“I definitely think I’m more cautious because I’ve never lived in this country whilst they’ve had this turmoil,” they said. “I feel a lot of people are comfortable only because this is Trump’s second term. They know what to expect. I don’t know what to expect. It feels like very unpredictable times. I am a minority in a space where I’ve never been a minority before. I see the way people look at me when they hear me speak because you can immediately hear the accent. I see the way in which people perceive me when they see the color of my skin. I’ve heard so way too many horror stories to think that I can be safe in this country, when in my opinion, I don’t even think African Americans are. So as an international student, as an immigrant, no.”
One thing I found surprising is how every person I interviewed expressed how they all found a sense of home in the U.S., and the fear they all carry that one small mistake can strip that away from them.
Although there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight, there has been pushback. One of the organizations that is taking the lead in this is the American Association of University Professors. They have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to prevent officials from arresting or deporting students involved in legal protests.
“The Trump administration is going after international scholars and students who speak their minds about Palestine, but make no mistake: they won’t stop there,” President of the American Association of University Professors, Todd Wolfson said at a briefing. “They’ll come next for those who teach the history of slavery or who provide gender-affirming health care or who research climate change or who counsel students about their reproductive choices. We all have to draw a line together—as the old labor movement slogan says: an injury to one is an injury to all.”
States have also taken it upon themselves to push back. According to CBS News, Maryland, along with 19 other states, has challenged the Trump administration’s “Ideological Deportation Policy” with a lawsuit.
“The administration cannot criminalize free speech or weaponize immigration laws against lawful residents because it dislikes their views,” Maryland Attorney General Brown said. “We are asking the court to put an end to this unconstitutional policy before it inflicts further irreparable harm on our communities and our fundamental freedoms.”
As of right now, there is no permanent solution. And this might just be something we talk about for a while.