Foreign students wary of US as Trump presses ‘dehumanising’ campaign

CAMBRIDGE, United States: Donald Trump´s expanding crackdown on elite universities is prompting some international students to abandon applications to campuses in the United States and spreading stress and anxiety among those already enrolled.

The president has upended the country´s reputation among foreign students, who number around one million, as he presses a campaign against US universities he sees as obstructing his “Make America Great Again” populist agenda.

He has blocked Harvard hosting international scholars in a maneuver being challenged legally, targeted non-citizen campus activists for deportation, and most recently suspended student visa processing across the board. Harvard applied mathematics and economic student Abdullah Shahid Sial, 20, said the Trump administration´s campaign against US universities that the president accused of being hotbeds of liberal bias and anti-Semitism had been “dehumanising.”

“It´s really unfortunate that this is the case for 18, 19, and 20-year-olds who came here without any family, and in most cases, haven´t been to the US before,” said Sial, who is from Pakistan and hopes to be able to return to Harvard next academic year.

Sial said he advised acquaintances to have backup plans if US colleges became inaccessible, and that a friend applied to Harvard´s law school, as well as Columbia´s, and two less reputable British institutions -- ultimately opting to go to the UK.

“He definitely liked Harvard way more (but) he doesn´t want this amount of uncertainty surrounding his education,” Sial said.

Karl Molden, a Harvard government and classics student from Austria, said Trump´s move to block the university hosting and enrolling foreign students meant he was unsure if he would be able to return after summer vacation. While that decision -- affecting some 27 percent of the overall Harvard population -- was paused by a judge pending a hearing Thursday, the move still threw student plans into chaos.