Fearing deportation, international students go silent at California’s universities

International college students are learning that speech isn’t as free as they thought in the United States. After President Donald Trump began his second term, hundreds of international students lost their student status as part of an executive order cracking down on immigration and alleged antisemitism. 

While lawsuits resulted in many of those students having their status reinstated since April, the uncertainty of it happening again has created fear among international students, particularly within the University of California system, where international students make up 13.6% of student enrollment as of Fall 2024. 

Some international students told CalMatters they have changed their involvement in campus activities, from the routes they take on campus to avoid free speech areas, to the topics they include in their research projects, to scrubbing their social media posts and limiting their political activism. 

The fear began spreading in late January, when the White House released a fact sheet about Trump’s Executive Order 14188, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” stating, “resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you.” Additionally, it mentioned cancelling visas of “Hamas sympathizers” on college campuses. 

Since then, there have been a few high-profile arrests of international students, including Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University, a legal permanent resident who was involved in leading pro-Palestinian protests, and Rümeysa Öztürk at Tufts University, a Turkish national who co-wrote an op-ed asking her university to divest. Khalil has since been released on bail and Öztürk was released by order of a federal judge. Still, these detentions have triggered concerns among international students about how their actions could be used against them.

Additionally, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently announced the U.S. would start “aggressively” revoking Chinese student visas, more specifically, those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in fields that are considered “critical.” 

Federal officials haven’t released any information about how many international students had their status revoked, or which campuses they attend. However, Inside Higher Ed compiled news reports of more than 1,800 students nationwide, including over 200 in California, whose status were revoked in the spring.

CalMatters reached out to all 10 UC campuses inquiring about the number of international students who have had their statuses reinstated, but only two responded. As of April 28, UC San Diego’s 35 terminated student visas had been reactivated, and one student was deported. At UC Santa Barbara, 11 of the 12 visas had been reinstated, though the “situation remains fluid,” said Media Relations Manager Kiki Reyes. 

International students are chilling their speech

None of the international students interviewed for this story wanted their names or areas of study published due to fears of being identified and having their status revoked for speaking publicly.

At UC Berkeley, a sophomore told CalMatters that she was involved in campus activism for about a year and a half until about March, when she saw international students losing their visas and heard rumors of immigration enforcement agents on campus. Her thoughts on protesting have changed drastically. “Everything I say can be used against me,” she said. She has been coming up with creative ways to be involved while trying to keep herself and other international students safe. For example, she participates in student club meetings, where she feels she can speak more privately. 

“I came to the United States because those are things that I wasn’t comfortable doing in my country,” the sophomore said. “I wasn’t comfortable speaking out. It was like a dictatorship, and that’s why I came to America, which is, like, where the freedom is supposed to be. And then I got met with this. It’s really, really disappointing.”

Also at UC Berkeley, a junior from the UK said that last year she felt much freer. During the campus pro-Palestinian protests last year, she wanted to participate but was too busy. Her regret has now turned into relief because if anyone had taken a picture of her near a protest, she believes she would have suffered consequences. 

“Under a Biden administration, I would have felt like I was free to criticize the administration. I was free to take part in protests,” she said. “Because of Trump’s recent decision — especially with the students at Columbia — I feel like I can’t be anywhere near a protest.”

An international graduate student at another UC — he does not want to name his campus in fear of not passing his dissertation — is working on a research project about the interplay of international politics and media. His research paper includes a section on human rights violations and genocide. Initially, he included coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Faculty advised him to remove the parts about Israel from his final project, he said.  

“It does not have that big an impact on the entire project…, but personally I’m just disappointed that I could not talk about it in my final events,” the graduate student said. “I will be presenting this to a set of faculty from my department, and they will be grading that, determining whether I can graduate or not based on the paper. It impacts a little bit on my department, and regarding freedom of speech.”

Balancing the support of Jewish students and due process 

In his executive order, Trump promises to protect the civil rights of Jewish citizens, who have faced harassment, physical threats and assault on college campuses.  

UC Irvine Jewish student Shir — who requested not to use her full name because she fears discrimination – believes if a student on a visa is “celebrating terror explicitly,” their student status should be evaluated. However, she notes the importance of drawing the line at terror and hate and not overstepping legal boundaries.   

“Skipping [due] process doesn’t protect [against] antisemitism, it only creates more hate in the system,” Shir said in an email. “We are all humans first and should be treated as such.”

While she supports students’ right to protest, Shir wrote “there have been students repeating and glorifying slogans and ideas used by Hamas, a terrorist organization. This is where action is needed. I and many other Jewish students have been confronted at these protests and on campus, told I am a terrorist, that my family in Israel deserves to die, and had protesters outright justify Hamas’ actions to me.”

Raquel Aldana, a law professor at UC Davis, said the language being used by the Trump administration about antisemitism is extremely broad and could be read to include anything that is anti-Israel. 

“One of the areas they’re going to be watching is how these institutions of higher learning respond to allegations of antisemitism, which could end up targeting foreign students,” Aldana said. 

The Trump administration’s antisemitism task force is investigating allegations of antisemitic incidents at at least 10 college campuses across the country, including UCLA, UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California.  

Aldana said she didn’t understand what problems the investigations are meant to address — adding that it “feels like a political move and not a true concern.” 

International students limited on travel options

Three UC campuses that responded to CalMatters said they’ve sent communications to international students to use caution if they plan to travel outside the country.

Right before spring break, international students said they received travel warning emails from their international student offices about the risks of leaving the country. At UC Berkeley, the sophomore student said an email from the Berkeley International Office said the office could not guarantee international students’ ability to return to the U.S. if they left the country, even though the U.S. State Department’s website states continuing students may enter the country at any time.

“We had to spend our spring break in the U.S., [when] people want to go home,” the UC Berkeley sophomore said. “Not having that option is really disappointing, the fact that no one at the university can advocate for the small percentage of [international] students they have, … is insane to me.”

For the summer break, UC Berkeley’s International Office sent another email in May that urged “caution” for continuing international students who planned to travel out of the country. On June 4, the White House released a Presidential Proclamation announcing restrictions from 19 designated countries to enter the U.S. As a result, UC Davis and UC Irvine recommended that international students from those 19 countries not leave the U.S. because the travel ban may prevent them from re-entering. 

Student newspapers face ethical dilemmas 

Öztürk, the Tufts university student arrested after criticizing her university’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, returned to Massachusetts after a judge ordered her release from a detention facility in Louisiana in May. Her arrest spurred college publications to take extra precautions.

Adalia Luo, editor-in-chief of UC San Diego’s student news organization The Guardian, and Chris Ponce, editor-in-chief of The California Aggie at UC Davis, said their opinion departments have been making changes. Luo said her organization has removed names from articles by international student writers upon request. Luo added that the priority is protecting the students even though removing a byline weakens a story’s credibility. 

UC Davis’ student news staff has discussed a similar issue. Ponce said they’re not simply granting anonymity for anyone who asks. However, they are “now more than ever” open to removing whole articles if it means protecting the status of international students, which they are doing on a case-by-case basis.

One student newspaper is challenging the Trump administration’s policies regarding noncitizen students. The Stanford Daily, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, is suing Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over immigration laws that allow the revocation of student visas for protected speech.

According to a letter from the editors, far fewer international students are willing to speak to The Daily, and those who do request anonymity. “Several international members of our own staff even left their positions at The Daily. Many of those who stayed requested to stop writing news articles related to protests or political events on campus and asked that their previous articles be taken off our website,” the letter states.

The junior at UC Berkeley said she writes for a campus political magazine. Once the Trump administration started targeting international students, she asked for the articles to be taken down, and the magazine obliged.

“I didn’t want my name affiliated with criticisms of the administration, as that would either risk me getting deported or a future visa being rejected. I believe the articles are still inaccessible, and my goal is that they remain so for the rest of Trump’s term,” the junior said. 

Despite fears about sharing their viewpoints publicly, international students say it’s important to be advocates for themselves and each other. 

The UC Berkeley sophomore said international students should continue to consider their safety as well as their rights. 

“You should be taking precautions to keep your status and to keep yourself safe, but to also know that if we back down, change will never happen,” the sophomore said.

Mercy Sosa contributed to this story. Emewodesh Eshete and Mercy Sosa are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.