Editor’s Note: This letter to the editor references the termination of two NC State students’ visas. You can read more on the terminations here.
I’d like to share my experience with the government’s federal crackdown on student visas. Last week, the Trump administration announced that it had begun to revoke the immigration status of students who had participated in protests against U.S. involvement in Gaza. As soon as the State Department announced this measure last Thursday night, my roommate, Sal, came out of his room in our off-campus apartment and looked at me with dread and worry in his eyes.
“They revoked my visa,” he told me. I was stunned. “Surely, there must be a mistake?” I asked. But this was no mistake. The Office of International Services had called and emailed Sal, confirming that without any reason, the State Department had revoked Sal’s visa status, effectively rendering him an undocumented student.
Sal arrived at NC State last December, moving into my apartment just before the semester began. He was born in Saudi Arabia, and some years ago, graduated from a Michigan university with a degree in electrical engineering. He was here to pursue his master’s degree in engineering management. He shared with me his appreciation of and fondness for American culture, and we quickly became friends talking about everything from football — the European kind — to what our future plans post-graduation would be. Sadly, in a matter of days, his entire world flipped upside down.
The Office of International Services suggested that while he was free to continue doing coursework online, it would be unwise to return to campus. After all, once your visa has been revoked, ICE has the legal authority to detain and deport you. There are reports that ICE isn’t only deporting people to their countries of origin; they’re also deporting people to facilities abroad like those in El Salvador. Every day that Sal remained in Raleigh, he was living under this threat, and there was no one who could protect him.
He was not the only student, however. The Office of International Services connected him with another student, a graduate student who was pursuing an advanced degree in chemical engineering and was also from Saudi Arabia. According to their contacts in Saudi Arabia, while they may choose to appeal the decision, they would be safer to do it from their home country than here in Raleigh.
Sal and this other student obtained their one-way return tickets and left the U.S. on Saturday. And just like that, their journey at NC State was abruptly cut short.
I’m a fourth-year chemical engineering major who is graduating next month, and while graduation is a time when we should be joyful, I’m anything but. I am angry and saddened that the University and this country have failed them. There are stories about people like Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, who was abducted in broad daylight by ICE agents. She lost her student visa because she had written an op-ed critical of her university’s silence on U.S. involvement in Gaza.
No one should be deported for free speech, but in the case of Sal, he was a lowkey individual who never attended any protests or wrote about this issue on social media. He minded his business and studied, yet he was targeted for no other reason than that he is an Arab national.
My question to the student body, to this editor and to our chancellor is this: Do we not protect the Pack, or do we stand idly by while members of our community are targeted and expelled without cause? When one member of our Pack is harmed, are we not all affected?
