Consider Not Leaving US for Holidays, China Tells Students

Chinese students in the US have been advised by their government that they might be better off forgoing any holiday travel that would take them to another country. President-elect Trump has promised tighter immigration policies, and his first administration moved to limit Chinese students' visas, the Wall Street Journal reports. China's consulate general in Chicago posted a note on its website saying students should "try to reduce unnecessary cross-border travel." American colleges have advised international students in general to be back by Jan. 20—Inauguration Day.

"It's a scary time for international students," a student from India told CNN. A graduate student at Columbia University in New York said she planned to visit her partner in Europe anyway and has booked her return flight for Jan. 19. She's become at home in the US and hoped to stay after graduation next year. Now she's not sure, per the Journal. "I wake up in the middle of the night, worrying about what to do next," the 26-year-old said. "Anxiety is through the roof, and almost everyone I know feels so lost."

The first Trump administration focused on Chinese nationals it considered security risks to US scientific research. They included graduate students and researchers who had studied at Chinese universities tied to the defense industry. More than 1,000 Chinese nationals had their visas revoked in 2020 on those grounds. President Biden reversed several of Trump executive actions, per the Journal, but there were still deportations. "The best way to anticipate or predict what will happen in the second Trump administration is to look at what happened in the first administration," said Stuart Anderson of the National Foundation for American Policy, per CNN, "and what we saw in the first Trump administration was an effort to restrict the entry of foreign-born (students and workers) throughout every category." (More foreign students stories.)