Ivy League colleges warn students of imminent travel ban

In a campus-wide email on March 16, Brown University advised its international community to reconsider any upcoming travel plans amid a widely anticipated travel ban from the Trump administration.

“Potential changes in travel restrictions and travel bans, visa procedures and processing, re-entry requirements and other travel-related delays may affect travelers’ ability to return to the US as planned,” wrote Russell Carey, executive vice-president for planning and policy, as reported by the Brown Daily Herald.

The advisory came after a Brown University assistant medical professor was detained after a trip to Lebanon and deported back to the country, despite holding an H-1B visa.

The email from Brown mirrored a similar advisory from professors at Yale Law School warning that international students abroad should consider returning to the US, and those already in the country should avoid leaving, as reported by The Guardian.

Both cautions follow media speculation about an incoming US travel ban from Reuters and The New York Times, reporting on a draft list of recommendations circulating from the Trump-Vance administration.

Though the US State Department has not formally announced the travel ban, reports state that the administration is considering three tiers of red, orange and yellow restrictions, with citizens of the so-called “red” countries being flatly barred from travelling to the US.

As of reports on March 14, countries being considered for full visa suspension are Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The ban would go even further than Trump’s 2017 partial travel ban, which initially restricted entry to the US from seven predominantly Muslim-majority countries, though there were some revisions to the list.

The anticipated ban would likely be rooted in the results of a report called for by an Executive Order issued by Trump on the day of his inauguration on January 20, 2025.

The “enhanced vetting” order requires intensified screening of nationals from certain countries entering the US and warrants “partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries,” said NAFSA.

The directive invited government agencies to submit a list of countries for which “vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension”, which is thought to be informing the travel ban.

According to NAFSA, the fact that a multi-agency “process” is involved could address criticisms about arbitrariness that surrounded Trump’s 2017 travel ban, making it more likely to be ultimately upheld by the courts. It added that a ban of this kind would likely be issued by a Presidential Proclamation.

During the run up to Trump’s second presidential term, dozens of US institutions issued travel advisories for international students to return to campuses before the inauguration amid fears of a ban being enacted in the first days of his presidency.

Despite China not appearing on the list of countries being considered for a potential travel ban, new legislation tabled last week has threatened to halt the issuance of all study visas to Chinese nationals amid national security concerns from Republicans.