Visa fears for international students as US vote nears – World

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The future of student visas — as well as coveted working visas and training visas — is up in the air ahead of the presidential election next week.

Four years ago, Nigerian Ernestino Amaechi got a visa to study business in the US but now he worries he might be forced to go back home and be separated from his two American-born children if visa rules are tightened after the US election.

Originally from the southern Rivers State in Nigeria, where he got his undergraduate degree, Amaechi now works as a part-time teacher at a community college thanks to a scheme that allows students to stay on after they graduate and get work experience.

But Amaechi’s Optional Practical Training (OPT) benefit, which is linked to his student visa, is about to run out.

His only chance of staying in the US is if his employers file for the highly competitive H-1B visa for skilled foreign workers in specific fields.

And as he scrambles for a solution, he’s worried that the next US president could complicate matters for him.

“I don’t get this sorted; I am in a serious mess,” he said in a phone interview from Quincy in Massachusetts.

Amaechi is one of around 50,000 students from sub-Saharan Africa who come to the US every year to study. Though China and India still send the lion’s share of students, sub-Saharan Africa is the region experiencing the most rapid growth in student flows, with an increase of 18 per cent in 2022-23.

But the future of student visas — as well as coveted working visas and training visas students can apply for after graduation — is up in the air ahead of the presidential election next week.

That’s because numerous policies — from the allocation of consular officials to process visas abroad, to the length of time students are allowed to stay and work in the US — can be altered, “with just a stroke of a pen,” by a US president, said Ben Waxman, the CEO of consulting firm Intead – International Education Advantage, which helps universities attract foreign students.

“It really does matter who is going to be president and their attitude towards international education,” he said.

Student visas have not been a hot-button topic during the election campaign and have not featured in debates between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

There was only one rather unclear — and uncharacteristic — intervention from Trump in June when, during a podcast, he said students graduating from US colleges should get a green card — or permanent resident card — to stay in the country.

epublican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump participates in a fireside chat in Glendale, Arizona, US — Reuters

The idea runs counter to his hardline stance on immigration and the campaign walked it back without further explanation soon afterwards.

Asked to comment on future policies on student visas for this article, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said the former president planned “on day one of his new administration” to shut the border and launch the largest mass deportation effort of illegal aliens in history.

“President Trump has also outlined the most aggressive vetting process ever to exclude all communists and radical Hamas supporters,” she said in an email response, adding that Trump wanted to only keep the most skilled graduates who would not “undercut American wages or workers”.

Statements like these explain why students like Amaechi are concerned about how the Nov. 5 vote could affect their prospects.

President Joe Biden’s administration has made it easier for some students to stay longer and get practical work experience after graduating, but Harris has not detailed any future policies on the campaign trail. Her team did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

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