Temple Beasley School of Law was going to host a recruiting event with lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, which caused concern for international students.
The event has been canceled, and Temple students will now hear from City Councilperson Rue Landau on public interest law. International students talked to Temple Update about how they’re facing challenges coming back to the country because of visa issues, new laws, and difficulties starting the fall semester.
For international students like Ariana Romero, it’s not about the struggle they face in classrooms, but the struggle to stay here at the university and in the country. She said, “I know a lot of my friends; they weren’t able to go to their countries this summer. I was lucky to be able to, but it was just for, like, a short limit of time because I was scared they would block my entrance again or they would put my country on the list of names that weren’t allowed to come back to the U.S.” Arianna is from Peru, finishing her final semester. She was hoping to have a smooth trip home, but then she had to navigate between the U.S. embassy in Peru and the Temple International Office, which proved to be more difficult than she thought, including dealing with visa payments.
Romero says, “The problem started when I had to, like, do the whole payments and then had to come to Temple and talk to the international office.” Romero also says her biggest problem is her work visa. “My work visa because they are denying a lot of work visas for students. I’m scared because how am I going to get a job after I graduate school?”
She was planning to apply to Temple’s Beasley School of Law, but she says Temple University is not doing enough to help. They had sent out emails throughout the summer, but it was just…“A lot of messages from Temple were, ‘You just have to come back. They are not protecting international students at their best effort, said Ramero.
An international student asked to remain anonymous; the student realized they would be aging out of their dependent visa and decided to leave the country immediately, waiting more than three months to return and continue their studies.
The student said, “They also instated a new process where they would also do background checks on all your social media. Because of this new policy, they had to put a lot more resources and change all their structure to help the 221G processing.”
“I decided to be on my feet and take a risk and go to a third country national process instead. So I went to Singapore to get my visa,” the student said.
This past spring semester, five current and former Temple international students’ visas were revoked. Students still remain alert and are hoping they’re not next.
Romero expresses her emotion and says, “We have nothing to protect us. As internationals, we do have rights, but they are not the same as American students do have.”
Temple Update reached out to the university for a response about how many people are in similar situations, but they have declined to respond at this time. Temple Update will continue to explore the latest story on this.
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