Among a flurry of reports about international students at US universities having their visas rescinded by the State Department for no apparent reason, a chemical engineering graduate student from Saudi Arabia studying at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is the latest to be caught up.
The individual, whose name has not been released, was one of two at NCSU from Saudi Arabia who learned in late March that their student visas were cancelled without explanation. The other student is Saleh Al Gurad, who was earning an engineering management master’s degree at the university, according to his roommate Philip Vasto, a fourth-year undergraduate student studying chemical engineering at NCSU.
NCSU leadership said it learned, along with the two students, about the government’s termination of their visas on 27 March. Three days later the two students purchased one-way tickets to Saudi Arabia and left the US together, according to Vasto, who wrote about the incident in NCSU’s student newspaper.
Vasto tells Chemistry World that Al Gurad, who had only been pursuing graduate studies at NCSU for four months, has since told him that he will not return to study in the US, even if he receives another visa, because he doesn’t feel safe or welcome there. He has yet to receive a reason from the State Department or NCSU about why his visa was cancelled, Vasto says.
‘It has definitely angered me to the point of writing the op-ed and trying to make sure that the story was out there because I wanted more people to be aware of what was going on,’ he states, noting that Al Gurad never attended any protests or wrote about controversial or political issues on social media.
‘It just gives a chilling effect … they are imposing this very undemocratic, authoritarian type of mandate upon people whom they disagree with, and they’re doing it against people who are not even exercising their free speech,’ says Vasto, who is a US citizen. ‘That sends the message that this is no longer a safe country for foreign students.’
The actions of the State Department are part of a larger pattern. Around the time the two students self-deported, Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that his agency had cancelled more than 300 ‘primarily’ student visas, with the apparent goal of reducing anti-American activism at universities. Many civil liberties groups and other observers estimate that the figure is actually larger.
On 9 April, the Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it would immediately begin examining the social media posts of applicants for US visas and green cards, which confer permanent residency status, during vetting and consider whether they may be antisemitic. ‘This will immediately affect aliens applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students and aliens affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity,’ the agency stated.
Vasto, who graduates in May, says this incident has made him think twice about re-entering academia. ‘A lot of people are now taking this into consideration, even young students and young graduates like myself, and we’re thinking about taking our skill sets elsewhere [beyond] academia,’ he says.
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