As admissions season nears, Trump’s travel ban has MIIS concerned
“Where we are going to be in the fall when the next semester starts is a real, open question, quite uncertain,” said Jeff Dayton-Johnson, student dean at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey
The fall may be months away, but colleges and universities are in going through their admissions process right now.
Dayton-Johnson said it’s likely they have applicants from the seven Muslim-majority countries currently banned from coming to the U.S. by an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
The school currently has five students from those countries — three on student visas and two permanent residents. All of them are in the country, but officials are concerned about the future.
“We would certainly not reject a qualified applicant from any of those seven countries on the basis of this ban,” Dayton-Johnson said.
But whether they’ll be able to get into the country is another question.
The school’s president said in a statement, “It strikes at the heart of our deepest values as a community and as nation. For us, education promotes dignity and respect. But this action encourages neither. And on a practical level, the impact on us at Middlebury has been significant already, and threatens to become worse.”
“I’m worried that students abroad or people who are thinking about coming to study in the United States are going to have second thoughts,” Dayton-Johnson said.
Some of the foreign students already here are worried about traveling.
“I would even want to go and visit my family back home … in the summer, but I’m afraid but I don’t know what might happen,” said Elizabeth Watiri, a student from Kenya.
Her home country is not on Trump’s list, but Watiri and many other international students said they can understand how those students feel.
“I think it would be very emotional for somebody to have all these dreams and expectations to arrive to a new country and then have the doors closed in front of them, without any explanation, without any preparation,” said Ariana Alva, a student from Peru.
