President-elect Donald Trump's hardline anti-immigrant rhetoric and campaign promises of resurrecting a travel ban have led to fear and anxiety for international students, according to a report.
Pramath Pratap Misra, a 23-year-old student from India who graduated from New York University this year with a bachelor’s degree in political science, told CNN it's a "scary time for international students."
Misra's comments come ahead of Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration in a country with more than 1 million international students. he has promised to expand travel bans, according to the report, including expanding previous travel bans on people from Muslim-majority countries and revoking student visas from “radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners.”
The uncertainty has left students even from non-Muslim-majority countries anxious.
ALSO READ: Why ABC settled a case they knew they would win — and why the Lincoln Project didn't
“We’re very uncertain about the future,” Gabrielle Balreira Fontenelle Mota, 21, a Brazilian studying journalism and international relations at NYU, told CNN . “I’m not from a Muslim country or from China, which are places that Trump usually criticizes. So I don’t feel as vulnerable as other international students. … What makes me a little bit more concerned is the ideological screenings that (Trump) said he will be implementing.”
In July 2023, Trump said he would bring back a travel ban "even bigger than before."
"Under the Trump administration, we imposed extreme vetting and put on a powerful travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists and jihadists out of our country," Trump told audience members in Iowa. "Well, how did that work out? We had no problem, right? They knew they couldn't come here if they had that moniker. They couldn't come here."
"When I return to office, the travel ban is coming back even bigger than before and much stronger than before. We don't want people blowing up our shopping centers. We don't want people blowing up our cities and we don't want people stealing our farms. So it's not gonna happen."
