Revoked student visas create uncertainty on UC Berkeley campus
Over the weekend, California's academic community was rocked by the news that dozens of foreign students had their visas revoked, with the move apparently connected to their participation in campus protests.
Everyone seemed to know about the State Department's action. A total of six students at UC Berkeley and six students at Stanford had their visas revoked by the federal government. Another dozen former and current UCLA students had their visas taken away as well.
On Monday afternoon on the Cal campus, it was not easy to find a student who was willing to talk about it. Eli Wilson and Kian Asgharzadeh described the uneasy mood on campus.
"Definitely anxious. A lot of anxiety, a lot of tension," said Wilson. "It's scary. You don't know if you'll be able to have the same security going into your future as you did, like, two months ago."
"There's more fear," said Asgharzadeh. "There's more, like, 'What am I going to do when my time is up here? Or am I even going to finish my time here, based on how things are going?'"
If there was any doubt that the actions were meant to target students who participated in last year's pro-Palestinian protests, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it pretty clear.
"We have a right to deny your visa. I think it makes sense to deny your visa," Rubio recently said on camera. "We're going to err on the side of caution. We are not going to be importing activists into the United States. They're here to study. They're here to go to class. They're not here to lead activist movements that are disruptive and undermine our universities. I think it's lunacy to continue to allow that."
"Point the camera around," said Asgharzadeh. "We don't see that here."
According to Asgharzadeh, while there may still be occasional demonstrations at UC Berkeley, on most days the campus is calm. The old 1960's desire for heated protest and debate seems to have died out over the years.
Berkeley is still known as a bastion of free speech, and it prospers from allowing foreign students in. But it also receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding. Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the state's universities are facing a tough dilemma.
"Universities have important decisions to make right now," she said. "One, about who they are and want to be in this unprecedented crisis that is facing our country and its students. And two, if that's not motivating enough, how may this affect their bottom line if foreign students won't trust them?"
At University of California campuses, international students receive no financial aid and pay -- on average -- about $30,000 more per year than residents. That may seem like a reason for Cal to fear scaring off international students. But Patricia Henle, whose blog offers admissions advice to more than a million foreign students, said it's unlikely that will have much of an impact on the UC system.
"If there's a chilling effect where a third -- a full third -- of the international students wouldn't apply to the UCs, the UCs wouldn't notice it, because there's such a demand. The demand is not high; it's ferocious!"
It's not something that anyone would have imagined just three months ago: students on a college campus being afraid to speak their minds. But if they happen to hold a student visa, Henle warns that they will have no more legal status than a tourist on the street.
"You're entering the country on a lawful visa. You're all held to the same standard," she said. "But, yes, I would be -- certainly for the next three years and nine months -- very careful."
College is traditionally a place where young people learn to question their beliefs. That's still true, but now, the questions are very different.
