Wesleyan University says its international students should aim to return to the United States from any overseas travel before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
鈥淚f you are planning to travel internationally over winter break, we strongly recommend that you re-enter the U.S. and return to campus by Sunday, January 19, 2025,鈥� reads a letter to students from leadership of the university鈥檚 Office of International Student Affairs.
鈥淲ith the presidential inauguration happening on Monday, January 20, 2025, and uncertainties around President-elect Donald Trump鈥檚 plans for immigration-related policy, the safest way to avoid difficulty re-entering the country is to be physically present in the U.S. on January 19th and the days thereafter of the spring semester,鈥� the letter continues.
The advisory from the Middletown university comes days after a was sent out to international students at the University of Massachusetts.
NPR that Trump鈥檚 鈥淢uslim ban鈥� resulted in students at U.S. institutions being prevented from returning to their schools.
In an in October, Wesleyan President Michael Roth railed against Trump鈥檚 鈥渙vert racism鈥� and 鈥渘asty nativism.鈥�
鈥淪o many of our schools have made a place for Dreamers, those students who were brought to the United States as children, and whose status in a is uncertain,鈥� Roth wrote. 鈥淣ow Trump has promised to deport legal immigrants as well. His nasty nativism is antithetical to the recruitment of international students, a practice that has been a boon to higher education and to the world. We must not be neutral about this.鈥�
It is unclear whether international students at other 黑料吃瓜网 colleges and universities will receive similar guidance to Wesleyan鈥檚. In an email to 黑料吃瓜网, Ozan Say, director of the Yale Office of International Students and Scholars, suggested the situation regarding travel guidance is fluid.
鈥淲e have no reason to anticipate that the current administration will make any changes to travel rules in the next two months and we do not know what exact immigration policies the new administration will enact after January 20th,鈥� Say said. 鈥淥ISS will continue to monitor and timely communicate any immigration updates and their potential impact to our international students and scholars when those changes materialize.鈥�
Other colleges and universities in 黑料吃瓜网 either did not return requests for comment or had no information to share as of Thursday.
