Khadija Mahmoud* is pulling an all-nighter, filled with caffeine and surviving on adrenalin to pack up her belongings so she can catch the train in the morning from Washington, DC to New York City for her summer internship.
Mahmoud is a 21-year old international student who has just finished her junior year at Georgetown University. She is anxious and worried after her immigration lawyer advised against leaving the country for the summer due to the recent border control policies for international students.
On 27 May, the State Department instructed United States embassies around the world to temporarily pause scheduling new student visa appointments, as the Trump administration seeks to expand social media screenings for applicants, the latest in a string of restrictions targeting international students.
“It’s been very turbulent, and equally terrifying with each development that comes,” Mahmoud told media, speaking from her college dormitory in Washington, DC.
Mahmoud isn’t alone in feeling this way. Many other international students say they feel they need to stay under the radar, afraid that even a small issue could get them deported.
According to NAFSA, a US nonprofit organisation that focuses on international education and student exchange, over the 2023/2024 academic year there were just more than 1.1 million international students studying in the US.
These international students made up 5.6 percent of the nearly 19 million total higher education students across the US.
Together, students from India and China made up 54 percent of the total, with India leading at 331,602 (29 percent) and China at 277,398 (25 percent).
United Arab Emirates Dirham Exchange Rate
