It had been months since Trump took office with the mission of “making America great again.” However, recent events and rumors have caused worry among citizens, especially international students and employees, as we must decide whether to remain in the country or pack our bags and go home. Most International students or employees choose to study or work in America for various reasons, including America being the nation where the market begins. The USA has a huge tech industry to boast about, and its pay grade falling among one of the top ranks globally. We believe America is the country where we can work to make our dreams come true due to the freedom it offers. However, recent events have proved to be contrary to that, such as imposing travel bans on a group of Islamic countries, the poor job market, and rumors of recession. As an International student from India, I am not a victim due to my country’s amazing bilateral ties with the USA, however, there is a huge mass of people that could potentially be affected by events such as this. While there are perspectives that support how these decisions might help the USA, my question is, why let an influx of people inside the country when there are going to be implications for their presence in the future? With this thought aside, I am going to list few of the recent happenings of the Trump administration, the reason for doing so, and the impact of decisions on the international masses.
Firstly, the increased scrutiny over H-1B and F-1 visa holders. Recent news has reported that students and employees have been deported randomly due to their political activism and social media involvement over social issues. But according to the constitution, aren’t we all entitled to our opinions and judgements towards political activities? Isn’t that what a democratic country is about? Isn’t this the characteristic that sets a difference between a democratic nation such as America from countries such as China or North Korea?
Secondly, the huge amounts of tariffs that the administration has planned to implement on foreign goods. Ideally, these tariffs are applied on foreign goods with the idea to promote the idea of making more goods in America, which I feel is okay to promote a sense of nationalism. However, that requires a stronger human resource for which the administration should ease their policies with hiring international population parallelly. However, with the increased Visa regulations for the international population, why would a company want to hire from the international population if the work visa regulations are getting harder to come by day by day? On the other hand, the registration fee to get a visa status changed from F-1 to H-1B has been increased from $10 to $215. How is that fair when, especially considering that people must change their student visa to a work visa to work and make money, and this now requires a whopping sum of $215?
Furthermore, increasing tariffs on goods could also cause a decline in the consumer base in a country with a widespread economy such as America. So, what happens to these leftover and wasted goods when there is a decline in the consumer base? A probable answer to this is, they get exported to other nations. But again, why would a nation want to engage in trade with another nation that imposes an import tariff on their goods?
With that point being made, my next question is, what happens to this tariff money?
The tariff money reaches the Department of Treasury and enters the general affairs budget, says a professor from Duke University and from there, it could be used for basically anything. The president suggests that these are a tool to implement tax cut plans in the future; however, economists have opposing views as they feel it could cause more inflation. So its only right to ask, where is all this money going, especially given the rumors of the USA falling into recession in the next few months?
If America is going to go into a recession, international students are left with the question to ask ourselves: “if we want to continue our journey in the United States or leave before it gets worse for us?” With this thought, I am concluding my article by saying, most of the policies of the Republicans would probably work well for the Nation if it is a nation like China where the population is not very diverse but for a country like The United States, with a huge diversity of population, it is unfair to be setting policies that does not do just to everyone residing in the nation.
REFERENCES:
- https://time.com/7265290/is-the-us-heading-into-a-recession-under-trump-what-to-know/
- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn93e12rypgo
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/05/where-does-tariff-money-go/81375235007/
- https://www.boundless.com/blog/trump-new-travel-ban-countries/
- https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations/h-1b-cap-season#:~:text=There%20are%20different%20fees%20depending,that%20are%20sent%20by%20mail.&text=Check%20must%20be:,the%20proper%20amount%20and%20signature.
- https://redbus2us.com/h1b-registration-process-lottery/
