International Students Need Not Apply: Impact of US Immigration Policy in the Trump Era on International Student Enrollment and Campus Experiences

Abstract

This chapter chronicles the devastating effects the Trump Administration’s immigration policies have had not only on the dwindling number of international students that attend university in the United States, but also on their mental and physical well-being as they navigate increasingly xenophobic and nationalist discourses both on and off campus. The states of Delaware and Kentucky are highlighted as unique examples of policies to maintain and increase international student enrollments, while also revealing the dubious neoliberal underpinnings driving these initiatives. International students generated $45 billion in revenue to the US economy, as of 2018. With stricter immigration policies and the 2020 global pandemic threatening a number of US institution’s very survival, a continued decrease in international student enrollments will potentially have irreversible fiscal and intellectual costs to the American Academy that cannot be overstated.