Florida's international students are graduating. Travel bans put them in limbo

TAMPA, Fla. - Arshia Esmaeilian had dreamed of coming to America as long as he could remember.

Esmaeilian and his brother were born in Iran but raised in Dubai, their parents believing the move could pavea more direct path to higher education in the West.

And it did. Esmaeilian graduatedwith a bachelor's degree in chemistry last month from the University of South Florida, a major step toward a career in research.

"In terms of quality of education it's exactly what I wanted," he said. "If anything, it kind of exceeded it."

And now, weeks after walking the stage, he may be forced to leave.

After a string of unprecedented White House orders banning travel to and from countries the U.S. deems a threat, students like Esmaeilian are stuck in limbo. Following graduation, they're at risk of detention or deportation if their visas expire.

In Florida, hundreds of international college students are finishing school this spring and facing this murky path.

Iran is one of 19 countries that the Trump administration hit with a full travel ban last year; entering, leaving or traveling through them is restricted. Those with Palestinian travel documents are also fully banned by the U.S. Twenty other countries are currently under a partial ban.

Esmaeilian is a F-1 visa holder, like most internationalstudents, which allows him to be a full-time student without being a U.S. citizen. When students holding these visas graduate, they have a 60-day grace period to leave the country, get a different type of visa, transfer schools or start work, which they cannot do unless U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services authorizes them for what is known as optional practical training.

The U.S. had paused reviews of immigration applications of any kind, including visas and petitions for asylum filed by "aliens from high-risk countries," an agency spokesperson said in March. Iran was one. And unlike applications from other banned countries whose visas were only temporarily paused, the spokesperson said Iranian visa applications would not be processed "at all."

A federal immigration judge on Friday ruled the agency had surpassed its authority and lifted the freeze on all immigration applications, citing in his 135-page ruling a lack of reasonable explanation for agency policies and its use of national security as a pretext to "mask anti-immigrant sentiments."

Still, the Trump administration can appeal the decision, leaving immigrants like Esmaeilian waiting.

"My situation isn't like a lot of other students' situations," Esmaeilian said. "People usually figure these things out months prior. And for me, I might not ever figure it out."

Graduates awaiting approval for work authorization could see a lapse in their legal status, putting them at risk of detention or deportation under an administration that has aggressively rooted out people who lack proper paperwork.

Manyof those cast into this anxious limbo arrived with a much different vision for their post-graduate months.

"The uncertainty is across the board," said Elizabeth Aranda, sociology professor and director of the Im/migrant Well-Being Research Center at USF. "When you have an inability to plan like that, and an inability to anticipate what's to come, it's impossible to make good decisions."

The suddenness of the bans was inhumane, said Simon Marginson, the founding director of the Centre for Global High Education at Oxford University. The Trump administration abruptly dropped the new rules a few months before the 2025 school year began, banning the first 19 countries in June and another 20 in December.

"There's no acknowledgment of the fact that they'd been accepted under the previous rule situation," he said. "They could have gone to another country and done their education there without being disturbed in this way."

Nearly all of the now-banned countries have students attending Florida universities, enrollment data shows. The five public schools with the most international students - Florida State University, Florida International University, the University of Florida, the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida - enrolled more than 3,000 last fall. Those students represented all but four of the countries.

More than 270 international students recently walked the graduation stage at six public universities that provided spring graduate demographics: Florida State, Florida International, Florida A&M, Central Florida, North Florida and New College. Other public schools, including UF and USF, did not provide counts of graduates from the countries.

A tougher climate for immigrants

More than 58,000 students were enrolled at Florida colleges or other higher-education institutions in fall 2024, according to federal data. They made up about 6% of the state's total enrollment.

Foreign enrollment nationwide dropped by 20% this spring, according to NAFSA, a nonprofit that advocates for international professionals. Of the 149 American universities that participated in the nonprofit's survey, more than 80% mentioned restrictive government policies and visa issues as the largest drivers of declining internationalenrollment.

Some universities accepting students from banned countries are finding creative ways to keep them enrolled, said Rachel Banks, a senior director at NAFSA. Students are starting their programs online or deferring acceptances with the hope that the bans could be lifted soon.

American presidents across party lines opened the door to international students and the value they brought to the country. But the recent crackdown on immigration, compounded by increased competition from other countries to recruit foreign students, has turned students away.

Countries including Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have ramped up international recruitment in the last couple of decades. Others, such as China, have invested in education to make a more competitive bid at retaining native students.

Still, for many young academics, American universities remain the gold standard, representing the cutting edge of science and technology research.

"They believe that the United States is the place to do it, particularly if there's a field of study of which the United States excels in," Bankssaid. "Even if they run into trouble, they will try to stay committed to it as long as possible."

Florida closes its doors

Florida has placed some of the tightest restrictions on international students of any state.

Three years ago, leaders passed a law preventing China and other "countries of concern," including Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, from seeking what conservative lawmakers called undue influence over public colleges and universities. The law limited partnerships, agreements and grants. Parts of the bill were challenged in court for being discriminatory but were eventually upheld.

Last year, legislators ended in-state tuition for students without permanent legal status at public colleges and universities, just a decade after former Gov. Rick Scott put such protections in place. Many of the students, known as Dreamers, were brought to the country by their parents as children and saw the move as yet another barrier to life in the United States.

Gov. RonDeSantis pushed state leaders to restrict the hiring of foreign faculty and researchers through the federal H-1B program, which provides temporary visas for workers in specialized jobs. The state approved a temporary freeze on those hires at public universities. The measure came on the heels of President Donald Trump's proclamation last year requiring a one-time $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, a move the White House said was designed "to put American workers first."

As protests erupted on college campuses decrying the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, DeSantis signed a law giving Florida the power to designate certain organizations as "domestic terrorists." The law allowed for the expulsion of students who voice support for such groups. It also required public colleges and universities to report detailed student visa information to the state.

At the federal level, the Trump administration has pushed to deport foreign students who have faced criminal charges, criticized Israel or were involved in pro-Palestinian protests. It has also made moves to revoke their entry visas and terminate their legal status. After students filed lawsuits, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reversed many of those visa revocations and status cancellations.

If the United States wants to lead in innovation and research, it needs to attract, not discourage, global talent, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a nonprofit comprised of college leaders that advocates for immigrant and international students.

"The decline in international students, which we are already seeing, means a reduced international talent pipeline," she said. "This will harm U.S. economic growth and slow innovation."

The rhetoric hasn't slowed. Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins, who is running for governor, promised he would ban visa holders from "nations of terror" and stop them from attendingstate universities.

For recent graduate Esmaeilian, his only plan moving forward is to have faith.

"There's not really a loophole," he said.

If his visa lapses before he is able to get his work papers authorized or figure out another plan, he will have to return to Iran. It would be his first time back since before the pandemic.

Awaiting him is mandatory military service, which could potentially land him in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a European Union-designated terrorist organization.

"That's kind of a blow to all the work I've done these four years," he said. "But also, am I safe there?"

He hopes that his younger brother, a rising junior at USF, will not have to deal with the same limbo.

"It kind of feels like collective punishment in a way," he said. "Even the smallest things and privileges that people think are normal, for us feel like dreams."

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This story was originally published June 9, 2026 at 4:07 AM.