Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Now that President Trump's administration has suspended interviews for student visas, schools like the University at Buffalo could face consequences as a result. One immigration lawyer says the program's been running smoothly until now.
Jennifer Behm of Berardi Immigration Law says universities that sponsor visas for international students are certified under, what's called, the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, and they are obligated to comply with federal regulations for tracking and reporting information about their students visa holders.
"This is all managed through a DHS-run database called SEVIS, that stands for Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, and that enables real time tracking of international students so schools have to update and report on a wide range of information including their regular data, name, date of birth, their country of birth and citizenship, their address. But also, more importantly, their enrollment status, their employment authorization, any disciplinary actions that would impact their status, whether they transfer schools or change their education level and their departure or any other family failure to maintain their student status," explained Behm with WBEN.
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Behm says until recently, the program has run smoothly.
"DHS knows who the international students are, both on paper and through digital records. The system is designed to ensure that the government knows which international students are in the U.S., where they're studying, and whether they're complying with visa terms. So any failure for a school to adhere to their obligations in reporting that data can result in loss of certification, which we haven't really seen thus far up until the Harvard termination of their SEVIS certification," Behm said. "It's interesting, because if we're reading between the lines, it wasn't necessarily for failure to comply with what they've been doing, but it was failure to comply with new data demands."
She says she's been getting a ton of questions from nervous students who may have had summer plans to go home and see their family before school starts.
"They are worried about their travel, if they needed to renew their visa. They are worried about the ability to get an appointment, or even if they do get an appointment, will they be readmitted back into the United States? So there's a lot of uncertainty as to what this is going to look like," Behm noted.
UB could be one local university that could he harshly affected by the visa interview suspension.
Professor Nathan Daun-Barnett says research intensive universities may have anywhere between 10% and 25% of their enrollments coming from international student populations.
"When you look at that, they're paying the highest rates, sometimes two or two and a half times what an in state student would pay. And that will have a pretty significant impact on their budgets and their bottom lines," said Daun-Barnett in an interview with WBEN.
He says revenue is not the only impact.
"When we have fewer international students in those graduate programs, our ability to continue to conduct that research is limited, and it may slow down some of the research productivity that you see at research universities," Daun-Barnett explained.
Daun-Barnett says it's too early to tell what the exact effect will be on UB, but things will be tighter.
"We won't necessarily be able to fill those spots with domestic students and and there are some programs that rely so heavily, particularly in the STEM disciplines and sometimes in business and and others where those programs may be difficult to offer. That will have an impact not only on the international students who aren't able to enroll, but also the students who are currently here that won't have as many options available to them," he said.