Last August, I packed up a 10-foot U-Haul, leaving behind my comfortable college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, ready to start graduate school in New York City.
When I moved to New York, I was only a year out from ending a long-term relationship with my high school sweetheart, so I planned to take my dating life slow. I hoped I’d go on a few dates. But I didn’t expect to fall in love. Until I met my boyfriend — a Fulbright scholar on a student visa.
We met organically at a graduate student social event outside of a bar in Greenwich Village last August. Friendly coffee meetups turned into dinners in Clinton Hill and walks along the Brooklyn Bridge. Until one night, after a first date filled with ferry rides and skyline views, he asked me to be his girlfriend at 11:59 p.m. in the middle of Times Square.
When we first started going out last October, we discussed what a future might look like for us. Fulbright requires students to return to their home countries for two years after the completion of their program. We have talked about how we might navigate that time apart, but mainly we stay focused on the guaranteed time we have together until he graduates next spring.
Our experiences as graduate students living in New York have revolved around each other. We’ve attended Broadway shows, Carnegie Hall performances and visited museums together. We’ve taken the Amtrak train to different cities, like Boston and Washington, D.C. We can agree that this bustling city would feel a little less full without each other.
But this guaranteed time, the year and a half we have left while my boyfriend is on a J-1 student visa, has started to feel less guaranteed. The Trump administration’s federal funding freeze led to delayed or partial stipends for Fulbright students earlier this year, creating uncertainty as to whether these payments would resume at all. My boyfriend is also from a country that the Trump administration has considered restricting in the latest round of proposed travel bans — so there is some anxiety about whether he can safely travel between the U.S. and his home country.
In light of recent immigration crackdowns, U.S. universities like Columbia University and Cornell University released guidance advising international students to postpone international travel plans over spring break.
This month marks almost 10 months since he’s seen his parents and siblings. There’s a plane ticket to his hometown burning a hole in his email inbox. For months he has agonized over whether it is safe to go, consulting with friends, family and immigration lawyers.
“I just want to see my family,” he says.
Photo Courtesy Of Isabella Reilly
If my boyfriend chooses to travel and isn’t allowed back into New York, he’ll lose the prestigious Fulbright scholarship he spent over a year applying for. He’ll lose all his progress on the degree he’s been working toward for almost a year. All those hours spent studying in his room and at the library will be wasted. He’ll have nothing to show for it.
If he isn’t allowed back into New York, we might lose each other, too. But I can’t tell him not to go. With my mother a one-hour plane ride from me in North Carolina, and my dad a three-hour train ride away in Rhode Island, I don’t know what it’s like to go without seeing my family for months on end.
As much as I fear what may await him at the U.S. border, I understand that for him — someone with a marginalized identity — the stakes reach far beyond our relationship. It’s a choice between family and his future.
Even though he is here legally and abides by the law, my boyfriend lives with the constant fear of being sent home. This fear isn’t imaginary — but created by the Trump administration’s aggressive revoking of several student visas at universities across the nation, like North Carolina State University and Columbia. The administration also recently blocked Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students.
While the Harvard ban has been temporarily halted by a federal judge, my boyfriend would say that all of the back-and-forth has only made his decision harder. He wishes there was a definitive answer — something that would guarantee he would either have safe travels home or that he should stay put in the U.S. As I watch him agonize over daily news push notifications, I wish there were a clear answer, too.
“Studying in the U.S. was supposed to be freeing, but instead it has made my boyfriend feel trapped.”
Studying in the U.S. was supposed to be freeing, but instead it has made my boyfriend feel trapped. He spent his entire life idealizing the image of life in America. Now he wonders if it was truly worth all that he gave up.
“When you’re in a place, and they keep telling you, ‘We don’t want you,’ eventually you start to believe no amount of fighting will make you belong,” he told me on a recent FaceTime call.
It hurts to see my country do this to him. Like him, I feel trapped by Trump’s deportation push. I’ve spent hours worrying about what may happen if he chooses to visit home. I’ve prayed a million prayers asking that he is able to travel back and forth safely. I’ve tried to imagine what my life would be like if he never came back to me.
International students bring with them a diverse set of perspectives and cultural traditions that American students can learn from. Meeting my boyfriend has introduced me to a world of culture I wouldn’t have found without him. Being in spaces where I am the only American at the table has sometimes made me uncomfortable, but it has forced me to recognize — and grow from — that discomfort, making me a more empathetic human being. I can confidently say I engage with the world around me differently now than I did less than a year ago.
That’s why Trump’s crackdown on international students is so alarming. With more than 1 million international students attending U.S. colleges and universities each year, efforts to expunge these students come not only at a price to our nation’s economy — international students contributed nearly $44 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-2024 academic year — but also carry a number of other risks.
With the majority of international students pursuing STEM-related degrees, we risk losing important research developments while simultaneously shrinking our worldviews and reinforcing a climate of xenophobia.
For my boyfriend and I, the administration’s crackdown sometimes feels personal — but it’s about so much more than my relationship.
I don’t know if my boyfriend will choose to use his plane ticket home. If he does, I have to hope his valid documents will allow him to pass through customs and that he isn’t questioned simply because of his identity. I have to hope that he will come back to me.
Until then, I will cling to every present moment we have, praying our clock doesn’t run out before it’s time.
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