The Taylor family cannot profit off of this administration’s ruthless anti-immigration agenda while simultaneously supporting young scholars from immigrant families.

Last summer, I watched videos like these from my dorm room in Beijing in frustration. Somehow, other Americans without Chinese backgrounds had discovered what I had thought was my secret to gatekeep: China is awesome. 

As college students, the mundane life of classes may make our daily actions feel meaningless against the backdrop of national unrest. Yet, we each have the ability and obligation to stay informed about ICE’s impact on our community and oppose their presence and actions.

In the fall of 2024, Qimeng Duan, a third-year anthropology Ph.D. student, unknowingly reversed into a gate at an autoshop. As an international student, Duan was unfamiliar with U.S. reporting requirements for minor car accidents, especially because she did not notice any damage. A few hours later, however, police arrived at her apartment. 

In September of this year, the Trump administration announced a new price tag for H-1B visa fees: $100,000. The previous fees ranged between $2,000 and $5,000. Several months later, there are new signs of what the future of H-1B visas could look like.

Amid attacks on student visas and increased ICE arrests in Missouri, junior Jaqueline Marquez Salgado founded Response in Action: Students for Immigrant Justice (RAISE), a new student-led organization at WashU “dedicated to uplifting immigrant voices,” according to its Instagram bio. Marquez Salgado, the acting president of RAISE, said she was motivated to start an immigration justice club this semester after reading headlines about ICE arrests over the summer. 

Two WashU law school student organizations — the Latin American Law Student Association (LALSA) and the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) — came together to inform the WashU community about the broader implications of immigration law and due process. Their efforts culminated in an open “Know Your Rights Symposium,” which was held on Wednesday, Sept. 17, in Crowder Courtyard.

Eve — a pseudonym that is being used for her safety — is now an undergraduate at a U.S. university who has endured about 10 years of hardship as an undocumented person in the country. 

The Trump administration has revoked visas for over 25 international students at universities in the St. Louis area, including St. Louis University and Webster University, as well as terminated the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records of select international students at WashU as reported by local news outlets on Tuesday, April 15. The government-run SEVIS database tracks information about non-immigrant students in the US, including their visa status.  

The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has incited concern among WashU students and faculty, and caused at least one department in the Medical School to send out a document detailing what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is present on campus.